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UNIVERSITY 


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THE  SOUTHERN 
FRONTIER, 

1670-1732 


BY 

VERNER  W.  CRANE 

Brown  University 


124195 

DURHAM  .  NORTH  CAROLINA 

DUKE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1928 


COPYRIGHT,  1929,  BY 
DUKE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


THE  SEEMAN  PRESS 
DURHAM,  N.  C. 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


THE  MEMORY  OF  MY  FATHER 


124195 


PREFACE 


The  title  of  this  book  has  its  warrant  in  contemporary  usage. 
For  thus  was  described  in  many  eighteenth-century  documents 
the  peculiar  situation  of  South  Carolina,  prior  to  the  founding 
of  Georgia  and  even  long  after,  as  a  border  province  fronting 
Florida  and  Louisiana.  But  the  term  had  Old  World  connota¬ 
tions  not  altogether  applicable  to  the  case.  No  map-maker  could 
define  this  frontier  with  certainty  as  an  international  boundary. 
It  was  never  fixed,  in  fact,  until  1763,  but  was  constantly 
fluctuating,  advancing,  for  the  most  part,  pressed  forward  by 
the  acquisitiveness  of  the  Anglo-American  pioneers.  It  was  no 
line,  but  rather  a  zone,  indeed  a  series  of  zones,  merging  into 
the  wilderness.  On  its  hither  side  it  was  an  area  of  frontier 
settlements,  at  its  outer  edge  a  sphere  of  influence  over  Indian 
tribes,  in  contact  and  conflict  with  similar  Spanish  and  French 
spheres.  In  reality,  then,  it  was  a  frontier  in  a  characteristic 
American  sense  recognized  and  defined  by  Frederick  Jackson 
Turner — but  for  whose  synthetic  ideas  this  book,  and  many 
another,  could  hardly  have  been  written. 

Despite  the  strong  lead  given  by  Turner  to  students  of  the 
national  period  of  American  history,  the  English  colonial 
frontiers  have  been  strangely  neglected.  We  have  had  few  in¬ 
vestigations  of  colonial  frontier  institutions — of  the  fur  trade, 
for  instance — to  match  a  notable  series  of  special  studies  of 
provincial  society  and  institutions  in  the  older  areas,  and  of  the 
administration  and  commercial  policy  of  the  Empire.  On  the 
side  of  demography  and  social  history,  Turner’s  own  essay  on 
‘The  Old  West’  remains  a  prospectus  for  unwritten  mono¬ 
graphs.  And  Parkman  has  been  permitted  to  say  almost  the 
last  word  upon  the  colonial  frontier  in  its  international  aspects. 

Until  recently  the  least  considered  of  these  frontier  areas 
was  the  South  beyond  Virginia.  When,  more  than  a  dozen  years 
ago,  the  present  study  was  cast  into  its  original  form  of  a  thesis 
on  the  Indian  frontier  of  South  Carolina,  1670-1715  (presented 
at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  for  the  degree  of  doctor 
of  philosophy),  its  bibliography  of  special  studies  was  brief. 
The  narrative  historians  of  South  Carolina  had  been  almost 


vm 


PREFACE 


entirely  oblivious  to  the  chief  differentiating  factor  in  early 
Carolina  history.  Logan,  to  be  sure,  had  brought  together  a 
mass  of  documentary  and  legendary  data  upon  the  upper  coun¬ 
try  and  the  Indian  trade,  but  without  organization  or  per¬ 
spective.  Writers  on  Georgia  had  recognized  its  border  charac¬ 
ter,  but  had  begun  their  studies,  save  for  curious  glances  at  the 
Margravate  of  Azilia,  with  the  charter  of  1732,  and  so  had 
thrown  little  light  upon  Georgia’s  origins.  Stressing  Ogle¬ 
thorpe’s  contests  with  Florida,  they  had  omitted  the  more  in¬ 
teresting  fact  that  the  founding  of  Georgia  was  an  episode  also 
in  the  Anglo-French  struggle  for  continental  dominion.  Park- 
man  had  dramatised  the  sixteenth-century  collisions  of  Span¬ 
iards  and  French  ‘heretics’  in  Florida,  but  had  found  little  space 
for  the  historically  more  significant  triangular  rivalries  of  the 
eighteenth  century  for  the  Gulf  plains  and  the  lower  Missis¬ 
sippi.  Justin  Winsor,  it  is  true,  had  assembled  some  of  the 
materials  for  a  better  balanced  picture  of  the  colonial  contest 
for  the  trans-Appalachian  West.  But  it  had  remained  for  a 
French  scholar,  Pierre  Heinrich,  to  publish  the  first  book — La 
Louisiane  sons  la  Compagnie  des  Indes,  1908 — in  which  the 
Carolina  traders  and  agents  appeared  as  protagonists  of  English 
expansion  in  the  old  Southwest.  The  meagre  printed  materials 
relating  to  the  southern  Indian  trade  were  first  compiled  by 
Mcllwain  in  a  note  accompanying  his  admirable  introduction 
to  Wraxall’s  Abridgement  of  the  Indian  Affairs,  1915,  with  its 
accurate  analysis  of  trade  as  the  basis  of  Indian  politics.  Mean¬ 
while,  Alvord  and  Bidgood  had  resurrected  the  forgotten  Vir¬ 
ginians  who  accomplished  the  first  recorded  explorations  of 
the  trans-Alleghany  region.  Batts,  Fallam,  and  Arthur  emerged 
as  not  unworthy  competitors  of  the  French  explorers  of  greater 
fame,  and  the  frontier  society  which  produced  them  was  ad¬ 
mirably  described.  But,  after  all,  these  Virginian  activities  of 
the  later  seventeenth  century  were  isolated  episodes,  without 
immediate  issue.  The  Carolinians  who  continued  their  work 
were  quite  unknown,  and  the  trading  expansion  which  they 
projected  was  but  vaguely  understood. 

My  own  efforts  to  occupy  this  field,  beginning  with  an 
article  on  ‘The  Tennessee  River  as  the  Road  to  Carolina,’  1916, 
and  continued  in  ‘The  Southern  Frontier  in  Queen  Anne’s  War,’ 


PREFACE 


IX 


1919,  and  other  essays,  have  since  been  supplemented  by  im¬ 
portant  contributions  of  other  investigators.  For  the  Indian 
background,  Swanton’s  studies  have  been  indispensable.  ‘A 
veritable  renaissance  of  interest  in  the  history  of  the  Old  South¬ 
east’  has  been  noted  by  Herbert  E.  Bolton,  who  has  himself 
usefully  promoted  it.  In  The  Colonisation  of  North  America, 
1492-1783,  with  T.  M.  Marshall,  in  1920,  he  gave  much  space 
to  this  frontier,  as  well  as  to  those  other  Spanish  borderlands 
whose  history  he  has  long  cultivated  with  so  much  zeal  and 
enterprise.  In  1925,  in  collaboration  with  Mary  Ross,  he 
brought  out  The  Debatable  Land,  ‘a  sketch  of  the  Anglo- 
Spanish  contest  for  the  Georgia  country,’  presenting  new  facts 
from  Spanish  archival  sources.  Bolton,  moreover,  has  been 
stimulating  a  group  of  younger  historians  to  explore  the  wealth 
of  manuscript  materials  for  early  Florida  history.  Although 
I  have  drawn  upon  such  Spanish  documents  as  were  available 
in  print  or  transcripts,  I  have  not  attempted  to  duplicate  the 
fruitful  work  of  the  Bolton  school. 

If  larger  use  has  been  made  of  French  documents,  it  is 
because  from  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  great 
issue  in  the  South  was  Anglo-French  supremacy.  Out  of  this 
contest  emerged,  earlier  and  more  clearly  than  elsewhere,  cer¬ 
tain  concepts  which  dominated  the  international  struggle  in 
America  to  its  close  in  1763.  The  continental  phase  of  that 
struggle  (the  rivalry  for  the  control  of  the  Mississippi  valley 
and  its  peltry  trade)  began  when  the  French  anticipated  the 
English  in  the  occupation  of  the  lower  valley  and  the  adjacent 
Gulf  coast,  only  to  find  themselves  challenged  at  every  point  by 
the  Charles  Town  traders.  Of  that  English  trading  advance 
into  the  old  Southwest  and  of  the  parallel  development  of  an 
Anglo-American  sentiment  of  expansion  this  book  is  a  survey. 
The  fear  of  French  encirclement  was  not  suddenly  aroused  in 
the  mid-eighteenth  century,  when  the  French  undertook  to 
strengthen  their  line  of  communications  in  its  middle  sector, 
and  when  for  the  first  time  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  traders 
became  really  active  in  the  West.  Before  the  end  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century  it  was  implanted  in  the  minds  of  a  few  colonists 
and  officials,  especially  in  the  southern  colonies ;  soon  after  it 
was  translated  by  the  Carolinians  into  an  aggressive  policy  of 


X 


PREFACE 


expansion.  There  followed  the  gradual  indoctrination  of  the 
colonial  authorities,  and,  at  Whitehall,  between  1720  and  1730, 
the  definition  of  a  halting  but  unmistakable  British  western 
policy  in  opposition  to  the  grand  French  design. 

For  this  point  of  view  may  be  claimed  a  considerable  de¬ 
gree  of  novelty.  Naturally,  since  the  investigation  has  traversed 
a  comparatively  neglected  field,  many  of  the  details  of  the  pic¬ 
ture  are  also  new.  It  has  been  possible  to  add  a  whole  series 
of  English  explorations,  border  wars,  and  diplomatic  intrigues 
to  the  records  of  wilderness  adventure  and  achievement.  For 
the  first  time,  also,  is  described,  from  newly  discovered  docu¬ 
ments,  the  extraordinary  trans-Appalachian  settlement  project 
of  Price  Hughes  in  1713.  Nowhere  has  there  existed  a  detailed 
analysis  of  the  structure  and  workings  of  the  colonial  Indian 
trade;  my  discussion,  while  confined  to  the  South,  has  there¬ 
fore  not  been  restricted  to  the  period  of  the  narrative.  A  special 
effort  has  been  made  to  discover  the  origins,  in  England  as  well 
as  in  America,  both  philanthropic  and  strategic,  of  the  move¬ 
ments  which  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  Georgia.  New 
light  is  also  shed  upon  several  familiar  episodes.  One  of  these 
is  the  Hennepin  enigma.  The  activities  of  the  colonial  pro¬ 
moters,  Coxe,  Montgomery,  and  especially  Purr)7,  are  more 
fully  revealed,  and  placed  in  their  setting  of  Anglo-French 
rivalry.  Comparison  with  the  neglected  Carolina  expansionists 
has  compelled  a  revaluation  of  the  asserted  leadership  of  Alex¬ 
ander  Spotswood  in  the  English  westward  movement. 

A  special  acknowledgement  is  due  to  Dean  Herman  V. 
Ames,  in  whose  seminary  the  investigation  was  begun,  for  his 
interest  and  his  patience  during  its  slow  fruition.  The  grant  of 
a  Harrison  fellowship  for  research  was  a  material  assistance. 
From  librarians  and  archivists  I  have  received  cordial  aid:  at 
the  Public  Record  Office,  and  the  Colonial  Office  Library, 
Whitehall ;  at  the  Library  of  Congress,  the  Historical  Society 
of  Pennsylvania,  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  the  South 
Carolina  Historical  Society,  the  William  L.  Clements  Library, 
and  elsewhere.  Mr.  Alexander  S.  Salley,  Jr.,  secretary  of  the 
Historical  Commission  of  South  Carolina,  was  a  generous 
guide  to  the  archives  of  that  state.  I  have  made  considerable 
requisitions  upon  the  pamphlet  collections  in  the  John  Carter 


PREFACE 


XI 


Brown  Library,  and  upon  the  bibliographical  knowledge  and 
critical  acumen  of  its  librarian,  Mr.  Lawrence  C.  Wroth.  My 
brother,  Professor  Ronald  S.  Crane  of  the  University  of  Chi¬ 
cago,  has  made  frequent  suggestions  regarding  sources  and 
problems  of  exposition;  and  in  all  the  drudgery  of  the  task  I 
have  had  the  constant  assistance  of  my  wife,  Jane  Harris 
Crane. 


Verner  W.  Crane. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface  vii 

i.  First  Contacts  With  the  Spanish  and 

the  Indians  3 

ii.  Carolinian  Expansion  in  the  Seventeenth 

Century  22 

hi.  The  Mississippi  Question,  1697-1702  47 

iv.  The  Southern  Frontier  in  Queen  Anne’s  War  71 

v.  The  Charles  Town  Indian  Trade  108 

vi.  Trade  Regulation  and  Intercolonial 

Problems,  1670-1715  137 

vii.  The  Yamasee  War,  1715-1716  162 

viii.  Defense  and  Reconstruction,  1715-1732  487 

ix.  Beginnings  of  British  Western  Policy, 

1715-1721  206 

x.  The  Carolina-Florida  Border,  1721-1730  235 

xi.  International  Rivalries  in  the  Old 

Southwest,  1715-1730  254 

xii.  The  Board  of  Trade  and  Southern 

Colonization,  1721-1730  281 

xiii.  The  Philanthropists  and  the  Genesis 

of  Georgia  303 

Appendices  327 

Bibliography  335 

Index  359 

ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  Cherokee  Embassy  to  England 
Map  of  the  Southern  Frontier,  1670-1732 


Frontispiece 

326 


ABBREVIATIONS 


AHR:  American  Historical  Review. 

BM :  British  Museum. 

CC :  Crown  Collection,  compiled  by  A.  B.  Hulbert. 

CO  :  Colonial  Office  Library,  Whitehall. 

C.O. :  Colonial  Office  papers,  Public  Record  Office. 

C.O.  Maps :  Maps  in  Colonial  Office  Library,  Whitehall. 

CSCHS:  Collections  of  the  South  Carolina  Historical  Society. 
CSP ,AWI :  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial  Series,  America 
and  West  Indies. 

GHQ:  Georgia  Historical  Quarterly. 

HCL :  Harvard  College  Library. 

JBT :  Journal  of  the  Commissioners  for  Trade  and  Plantations 
(Board  of  Trade). 

JC :  Journal  of  the  Council  of  South  Carolina. 

JCB  :  John  Carter  Brown  Library. 

JCHA:  Journal  of  the  Commons  House  of  Assembly  of  South 
Carolina. 

JCHA :  idem.,  MS. 

JGC :  Journal  of  the  Grand  Council  of  South  Carolina. 

JIC :  Journal  of  the  Indian  Commissioners  of  South  Carolina. 

LC  :  Library  of  Congress. 

MV  HR:  Mississippi  Valley  Historical  Review. 

SCHGM :  South  Carolina  Historical  and  Genealogical  Magazine. 
S.P. :  State  Papers,  Public  Record  Office. 

S.P.G. :  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign 
Parts. 

WLC :  William  L.  Clements  Library. 


THE  SOUTHERN 
FRONTIER 


► 


} 


CHAPTER  I 

First  Contacts  with  the  Spanish  and  the  Indians 

In  April,  1670,  some  one  hundred  and  fifty  colonists  from 
England  and  Barbados  disembarked  at  the  mouth  of  Ashley 
River.  They  were  the  first  permanent  settlers  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  the  pioneers  in  a  new  zone  of  English  colonial  expansion 
and  of  international  conflict,  the  southern  frontier. 

Destined  for  Port  Royal,  the  little  Carolina  fleet  had  been 
diverted  northward,  probably  by  the  uncomfortable  neighbor¬ 
hood  of  the  Spanish  missions,  just  beyond  the  Savannah  River. 
Even  at  Kiawah  the  new  colonists  found  themselves  only  two 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  the  presidio  of  St.  Augustine. 
Twice  that  distance  separated  them  from  the  Chesapeake  settle¬ 
ments  :  five  hundred  miles  of  coast  as  yet  unoccupied  save  at 
Albemarle  Sound,  a  wretched  frontier  of  Virginia,  and  at 
Cape  Fear,  where  two  recent  attempts  at  planting  had  met  with 
failure.  ‘Wee  are  here  setled,’  wrote  one  Carolinian,  ‘in  the 
very  chaps  of  the  Spaniard.’1 

From  the  beginning,  then,  Carolina  existed  as  an  exposed 
border  colony  against  the  Spanish  of  Florida,  and  against 
numerous  powerful  tribes  of  southern  Indians.  Westward  the 
wilderness  stretched  to  the  Appalachians,  southwestward 
through  the  Gulf  plains  to  the  Mississippi.  Who  could  predict, 
in  1670,  that  when  a  generation  had  passed,  Carolinians  would 
confront  Frenchmen  on  the  great  river  in  a  contest  for  the 
heart  of  the  continent?  But  even  while  the  first  colonists  were 
building  the  huts  and  palisades  of  Old  Charles  Town,  other 
actors  were  helping  to  shape  the  historic  role  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina.  At  Madrid,  in  May,  Lord  Godolphin  negotiated  a  treaty 
in  which  Spain  confirmed  the  existing  possessions  of  Great 
Britain  in  America.2  In  1669  and  1670,  a  young  Frenchman, 
Robert  Cavelier  de  la  Salle,  was  attempting  to  penetrate  from 

1  Joseph  Dalton  to  Lord  Ashley,  September  9,  1670,  in  Collections  of  the 
South  Carolina  Historical  Society  (hereinafter  cited  as  CSCHS),  V.  183. 
This  and  all  other  citations  from  the  Shaftesbury  papers  have  been  collated 
with  the  manuscript  originali  in  the  Public  Record  Office. 

2  A  Treaty  for  the  Composing  of  Differences  .  .  .  between  the  Crowns  of 
Great  Britain  and  Spain.  London,  1670.  Also  in  Dumont  (ed.),  Corps  diplo¬ 
matique,  VII.  138. 


1 


[3] 


4 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Canada  into  the  region  south  of  the  Great  Lakes.  Other  French¬ 
men,  missionaries  and  coureurs  de  bois,  were  on  the  brink  of 
the  discovery  of  the  Mississippi.  In  Virginia,  under  the  patron¬ 
age  of  Sir  William  Berkeley,  plans  were  being  laid  for  a  series 
of  inland  explorations  which  first  carried  Englishmen  to  the 
margin  of  the  trans-Appalachian  West.  But  in  the  sequel  not 
Virginia  but  Carolina  faced  the  successors  of  Marquette  and 
La  Salle  in  the  central  valley. 

The  southern  frontier  was  but  one  of  many  borders,  in 
India,  Africa,  the  West  Indies,  and  North  America,  where  Eng¬ 
lishmen  of  the  late  seventeenth  and  the  eighteenth  centuries  vied 
with  their  rivals,  notably  the  French,  for  commercial  and  co¬ 
lonial  supremacy.  Only  at  intervals  was  this  a  contest  of  arms. 
But  always  there  existed  the  keenest  rivalry  for  the  control  of 
the  staples  of  world  trade  and  of  the  areas  where  these  could 
be  produced.  From  Hudson  Bay  to  the  Caribbean  the  competi¬ 
tion  for  sugar,  tobacco,  indigo,  fish,  and  peltries  was  waged 
upon  the  seas  and  along  a  far-flung,  imperfectly  defined,  inter¬ 
national  border.3  In  the  interior  of  North  America  rivalry 
centred  in  competition  for  the  Indian  trade  and  Indian  alliances. 

The  English  advance  into  the  South  beyond  Virginia  was 
a  product  of  typical  forces  of  the  Restoration  era,  when  busi¬ 
ness  had  become  a  basis  for  statecraft.4  The  group  of  courtiers 
and  politicians  to  whom  Charles  II,  complacently  ignoring  the 
rights  of  Spain,  granted  in  1663  the  great  region  from  36°  to 
31°  and  from  sea  to  sea,  included  England’s  boldest  and  most 
influential  men  of  affairs.  Lord  Ashley’s  ‘Carolina  business’ 
was  but  one  of  the  interests  which  the  shrewd  promoter-poli¬ 
tician  shared  with  his  fellow  Proprietors  and  their  circle. 
Members  of  this  group  concocted  the  seizure  of  New  Nether- 
land.  They  were  the  first  Englishmen  to  see  the  great  future  of 
the  American  fur  trade,  and  organized  the  Hudson’s  Bay 
Company  to  vie  with  France  for  the  spoils  of  the  northern 
forests.  From  England  they  directed  the  penetration  of  the 
wilderness  west  of  Virginia  and  Carolina.  Profit  from  com¬ 
merce  was  their  chief  aim  in  colonization.  But  American  real 

3  C.  M.  Andrews,  ‘Anglo-French  Commercial  Rivalry,  1700-1750,’  in 
American  Historical  Review  (hereinafter  cited  as  AHR),  XX.  546. 

‘See  C.  W.  Alvord  and  Lee  Bidgood,  The  First  Explorations  of  the 
Trans-Alleghany  Region  by  the  Virginians ,  1650-1674,  1912,  pp.  56  et  seq. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


5 


estate — in  New  Jersey  as  well  as  in  Carolina — promised  further 
returns.  The  distresses  of  the  West  Indian  planters  solved  the 
problem  of  securing  settlers  for  their  Carolina  estates.  In  Bar¬ 
bados,  especially,  the  transition  to  large-scale  agriculture  had 
made  emigration  imperative.  And  old  Barbadians  imported  with 
them  into  Carolina  a  lively  hatred  of  the  Spaniard. 

When  Lord  Ashley,  in  1669,  took  vigorously  in  hand  the 
promotion  of  Carolina,  it  was  evident  that  the  earlier  struggling 
settlements  at  Albemarle  and  Cape  Fear  had  failed  to  satisfy 
any  of  these  businesslike  objects.  Meanwhile,  voyages  along 
the  coast  had  convinced  the  Proprietors  that  Port  Royal  was 
the  best  site  for  settlement.  Both  Hilton,  in  1663,  and  Sand- 
ford,  in  1666,  had  returned  glowing  descriptions  of  the  soil, 
climate,  and  products  of  this  fair  country  of  islands  and  rivers. 
‘We  could  wish,’  wrote  Hilton  and  his  companions,  ‘that  all 
they  that  want  a  happy  settlement,  of  our  English  Nation,  were 
well  transported  thither.’5 

They  had  also  furnished  evidence,  these  explorers,  that  the 
Spanish  of  Florida  still  sought  to  maintain  possession  of  Santa 
Elena.  The  spot  upon  which  Ashley  and  his  associates  had  fixed 
was  the  site  of  one  of  the  early  presidios  of  Florida.  For 
nearly  a  century,  moreover,  it  had  been  the  scene  of  persistent 
missionary  efforts,  first  by  Jesuits,  later  by  Franciscans.  After 
ousting  the  French  ‘heretics’  and  founding  St.  Augustine, 
Menendez  de  Aviles  had  planted  posts  and  missions  all  along 
the  Georgia-Carolina  coast,  1566-1568.  Though  San  Felipe  l 
fort  was  finally  abandoned  in  1587,  after  Drake’s  descent,  mis¬ 
sions  had  been  maintained  so  late  as  1655  at  San  Felipe  (Parris 
Island)  and  at  Chatuache,  six  leagues  to  the  north.6  But  in 
1661  the  district  of  Guale  to  which  these  outlying  missions 
were  attached  had  been  raided  by  a  fierce  northern  tribe.7 
Reputed  man-eaters,  these  Indians  had  come  from  the  borders 
of  Virginia  to  spread  terror  in  the  South.  ‘Chichumecos’  the 

5  William  Hilton,  A  True  Relation  of  a  Vovage  upon  Discovery  (1664), 
reprinted  in  CSCHS,  V.  24;  and  in  A.  S.  Salley,  Jr.  (ed.),  Narratives  of 
Early  Carolina,  1650-1708,  1911,  p.  45. 

9H.  E.  Bolton  and  Mary  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  1925,  chapters  i 
and  ii. 

T  Ara.nguiz  to  the  King  of  Spain,  September  8,  1662,  in  J.  R.  Swanton, 
Early  History  of  the  Creek  Indians  and  their  Neighbors,  1922,  p.  305.  See 
my  note  in  American  Anthropologist,  n.s.,  XX.  335-6. 


6 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Spaniards  called  them,  but  they  were  almost  certainly  the 
Ricahecrians  who  had  been  expelled  from  Virginia  in  1656, 
and  who,  as  the  Westo,  played  a  great  part  in  early  Carolina 
history.  With  difficulty  Aranguiz,  the  governor  of  Florida,  had 
saved  Guale.  The  mission  frontier  retreated  south  of  the  Sa¬ 
vannah  River. 

When  Hilton  cast  anchor  in  St.  Helena  Sound  he  found, 
therefore,  that  the  Indians  used  many  Spanish  words,  that 
several  had  visited  St.  Augustine  ‘but  ten  days’  journey,’  and 
that  the  Spaniards  were  accustomed  to  visit  them.  Indeed,  just 
at  this  time,  Captain  Alanso  Argiielles  had  come  from  the 
presidio  with  soldiers  to  rescue  some  castaway  English  sailors. 
Both  Hilton  and  Sandford,  moreover,  noted  that  ‘a  fair  wooden 
Crosse,  of  the  Spaniards’  ereccon’  stood  before  the  town-house 
of  Port  Royal.  Sandford,  however,  ‘could  not  observe  that 
the  Indians  performed  any  adoration  before  it,’  and  in  letters 
to  Hilton  the  Spanish  captain  had  referred  to  the  place  as  ‘this 
Town  of  Infidel  Indians.’  Nevertheless  he  claimed  their  alle¬ 
giance  as  ‘Naturals  who  had  given  their  obedience  to  the  King 
our  Master.’  But  in  1666  and  again  in  1670  they  vied  with  the 
tribes  of  Edisto  and  Kiawah  in  their  prayers  that  the  English 
colony  be  planted  in  their  midst,  for  all  the  coastal  Indians  were 
desperately  anxious  to  secure  the  protection  which  the  Spanish 
could  not  give  them  against  the  dreaded  Westo.8 

Among  the  colonists  at  Kiawah  in  1670  was  the  young 
surgeon,  Dr.  Henry  Woodward.  Already  he  had  learned  much 
of  the  country  and  the  Indians  and  the  Spaniards.  Woodward’s 
was  a  career  of  amazing  adventure.  The  progenitor  of  a  notable 
line  of  southern  leaders,  he  was  the  first  settler  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  the  first  interpreter  and  Indian  agent,  the  first  English¬ 
man  to  penetrate  the  western  wilderness  beyond  the  Chatta¬ 
hoochee,  the  pioneer,  in  a  word,  of  English  expansion  in  the 
'lower  South.  In  1666,  as  a  companion  of  Sandford,  Woodward 
had  volunteered  to  stay  at  Port  Royal  to  master  the  Indian 
tongue.  There  the  chief  had  shown  every  honor  to  his  visitor: 
had  placed  him  on  his  throne,  given  him  a  field  of  maize,  and 
his  own  niece  to  ‘tend  him  and  dresse  his  victualls  and  be  care- 
full  of  him.’  Before  he  sailed,  Sandford  had  conveyed  to  him 

8  CSCHS,  V.  18-28,  74,  79,  166,  167,  168,  194. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


7 


formal  possession  of  the  whole  country  to  hold  as  tenant-at- 
will  of  the  Lords  Proprietors.  Thus  Woodward  began  his  ap¬ 
prenticeship  as  interpreter  and  explorer.  But  the  Spanish  still 
kept  an  eye  on  Santa  Elena,  and  soon  appeared  to  carry  him 
off  to  St.  Augustine.  In  1668  he  found  a  chance  to  escape 
when  the  buccaneer  Searle  raided  the  town.  For  a  time  he 
sailed  the  Caribbean  as  surgeon  of  a  privateer,  hoping  to  get 
to  England  to  report  to  the  Proprietors.  Shipwrecked  at  Nevis, 
he  took  passage  thence  with  the  Carolina  fleet,  to  become  at 
once  the  most  useful  servant  of  the  Proprietors  in  Carolina.9 

Two  years  at  Port  Royal  and  in  Florida  must  have  given 
Woodward  a  fair  notion  of  how  matters  stood  between  the 
Spaniards  and  the  Indians  in  that  part  of  the  world.  On  every 
one  of  her  frontiers  in  North  and  South  America  Spain’s) 
Indian  policy  was  based  upon  the  mission.10  This  frontier  insti- , 
tution  was  maintained  for  religious  propaganda,  and  also  for 
instruction  in  agriculture  and  the  arts.  Along  the  border,  more¬ 
over,  the  missionary,  with  his  soldier  guard,  upheld  the  au¬ 
thority  of  the  distant  Spanish  king.  Everywhere  efforts  were 
made  to  convert  the  barbarous  ‘infidel’  tribes,  settle  them  in 
villages  within  sound  of  mission  bells,  instruct  them  in  the 
faith  and  in  settled  ways  of  life.  In  Florida,  during  the  sixteenth, 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  three  mission  fields  had  been  de¬ 
veloped.  Despite  periodic  revolts,  incursions  by  hostile  tribes,, 
and,  upon  the  coast,  attacks  by  buccaneers,  these  missions  oft  ^ 
Guale,  Timucua,  and  Apalache  survived  until  the  Spanish 
Indian  system,  based  upon  religion  and  agriculture,  came  into! 
fatal  collision  with  the  English  system,  based  solely  upom 
trade.11 

®J.  W.  Barnwell,  ‘Dr.  Henry  Woodward,’  in  South  Carolina  Historical 
and  Genealogical  Magazine  (hereinafter  cited  as  SCHGM) ,  VIII.  29-41. 
CSCHS,  V.  65,  78  f.,  183,  188  note,  190  f.  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable 
I  Land ,  1925,  pp.  29-32. 

10  H.  E.  Bolton,  ‘The  Mission  as  a  Frontier  Institution  in  the  Spanish- 
American  Colonies,’  AHR,  XXIII.  42-61. 

11  On  the  Florida  missions  see  J.  G.  Shea,  History  of  the  Catholic  Church 
i  in  the  United  States,  I  (1886),  100-82;  Woodbury  Lowery,  The  Spanish 

Settlements  within  the  Present  Limits  of  the  United  States:  Florida,  1562- 
1574,  1905 ;  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  chapter  ii.  Special  ac¬ 
counts  of  the  Guale  missions  are  J.  G.  Johnson,  The  Spanish  Period  of 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina  History,  1566-1702  (Bulletin  of  the  University 
of  Georgia,  XXIII,  number  9b,  1923)  ;  J.  G.  Johnson,  ‘The  Yamassee  Revolt 
of  1597  and  the  Destruction  of  the  Georgia  Missions,’  in  Georgia  Historical 
Quarterly  (hereinafter  cited  as  GHQ),  VII.  44-53;  Mary  Ross,  ‘French 


i 


8 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Nearest  the  new  English  border  was  the  mission  district  of 
Guale,  which  comprised  the  coast  and  the  sea-islands  from  St. 
John’s  to  Port  Royal.  Since  the  retreat  from  Santa  Elena,  the 
northern  Spanish  outpost  was  at  Santa  Catalina  de  Guale,  on 
St.  Catherine’s  Island.  At  ‘Wallie’  the  English  in  1670  found 
‘brave  plantations  with  a  :  100  working  Indians’  wanting  ‘noth¬ 
ing  in  the  world.’12  To  meet  the  new  threat  to  Spanish  control 
a  garrison  was  soon  established  alongside  this  mission.  On  the 
mainland,  a  few  leagues  westward,  was  the  Indian  settlement 
of  Tupiqui.  On  Sapelo  Island,  north  of  the  Altamaha  River, 
stood  the  mission  of  San  Jose  de  Zapala,  with  the  settlements 
of  Tolemato  and  Yoa  in  the  hinterland  near-by.  San  Domingo 
de  Talaje  occupied  St.  Simon’s  Island.  Southward,  San  Buena¬ 
ventura  de  Guadalquini  on  Jekyl  Island,  or  St.  Simon’s,  over¬ 
looked  the  Ospo  town,  and  San  Pedro  Mocama  occupied 
Cumberland  Island.  Less  successful  were  the  efforts  of  the 
friars  to  convert  the  barbarous  inland  Indians  of  Salchiches, 
Tulafina,  Ocute,  Tama.  The  last  was  a  name  broadly  applied 
to  the  interior  region  behind  the  sea-islands  and  the  marshes  of 
Guale,  visited  occasionally  by  Spanish  missionaries  and  soldiers 
whom  the  lure  of  riches  and  the  quest  of  souls  still  called  to 
the  old  trails  of  De  Soto,  Pardo,  and  Boyano.  But  in  the  hinter¬ 
land  they  made  no  settlements  and  kept  no  real  sway.13 

The  missions  of  Guale,  already  hard-pressed,  were  naturally 
the  first  to  feel  the  force  of  English  expansion.  But  others  were 
to  suffer  in  their  turn.  The  principal  tribe  of  peninsular  Florida 
was  the  Timucua.  In  1655  the  district  of  Timucua  included 
eighteen  missions,  stretching  eastward  and  westward  from  their 
centre  at  Santa  Fe  to  link  St.  Augustine  with  the  populous 
country  of  the  Apalache.14  This  latter  tribe  inhabited  the  very 

Intrusions  and  Indian  Uprisings  in  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  (1577- 
1580),’  GHQ,  VII.  251-81 ;  Mary  Ross,  ‘The  French  on  the  Savannah.  1605,’ 
GHQ,  VIII.  167-94;  Mary  Ross,  ‘The  Restoration  of  the  Spanish  Missions 
in  Georgia,  1598-1606,’  GHQ,  X.  171-99. 

12  CSCHS,  V.  169. 

13  The  English  of  Charles  Town  in  1670  knew  of  four  missions  ‘upon  the 
Spanish  keyes’  {CSCHS,  V.  198).  On  the  Indians  of  Guale  and  the  hinter¬ 
land  see  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  60,  80-109,  174  f.,  181  f. 

11  The  Timucuan  missions  appear  on  an  English  manuscript  map  of  the 
early  eighteenth  century,  Colonial  Office  (hereinafter  cited  as  C.O.)  Maps, 
North  American  Colonies,  General,  7.  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  322  f.. 
prints  Spanish  lists  (1655,  1680)  of  the  missions  of  Guale,  Timucua,  and 
Apalache. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


9 


fertile  lands  along  the  lower  courses  of  the  Ocklocknee  (Apa- 
lache)  and  Ocilla  Rivers,  fronting  the  northeastern  corner  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  In  1655  nine  establishments  in  Apalache 
were  evidence  of  the  success  of  Franciscan  efforts  during  the 
two  decades  since  the  coming  of  the  friars.  There,  too,  resorted 
Spanish  provision  ships,  for  Apalache  had  become  a  granary 
for  St.  Augustine  and  Havana,  and  at  San  Luis  (Tallahassee) 
a  garrison  was  maintained  to  hold  the  western  Florida  border 
against  pirates  and  hostile  Indians.  Apalache  also  served  as  a 
base  for  Spanish  activities  among  the  Creek  Indians  and  along 
the  Gulf  coast  westward  to  Pensacola  Bay.15  With  the  later 
advance  of  the  English  traders,  about  1700  Apalache  became 
the  essential  point  of  support  for  the  whole  Spanish  and  French 
defense  of  the  old  Southwest. 

Such  was  the  extent  of  effective  Spanish  control  when  the 
English  came  to  South  Carolina.  The  Carolina  charter  of  1663, 
and  especially  the  enlarged  grant  of  1665  southward  to  29°, 
manifestly  prejudiced  a  great  area  which  was  Spanish  by  right 
of  discovery,  exploration  and,  in  the  regions  described,  by 
continuous  occupation.16  South  of  the  Savannah  River  the 
English  could  have  no  rights  ;  northward,  the  title  to  Port  Royal 
was  in  some  doubt,  in  view  of  the  recent  Spanish  retreat.  The 
Godolphin  treaty  was  signed  before  there  could  have  been  any 
knowledge  in  Spain  or  in  England  of  the  new  settlement  at 
Kiawah.  At  most  it  gave  the  English  a  quit-claim  to  the  coast 
as  far  south  as  Old  Charles  Town.  But  the  English  seem  to 
have  valued  article  VII  of  the  treaty  of  Madrid  chiefly  as  a 
recession  from  the  old  Spanish  monopoly,  rather  than  as  an 
exact  definition  of  boundaries.  Their  reliance,  throughout  the 
history  of  this  border,  was  upon  the  fact  of  possession.17 

In  Florida,  however,  the  colony  at  San  Jorge  (Charles 
Town)  was  regarded  as  a  flagrant  intrusion,  to  be  driven  from 
Spanish  soil.  The  exit  of  the  Spanish  fleets  from  the  Caribbean 


1' 


15  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  25-27;  Shea,  Catholic 
Church,  I.  165-7,  172,  178. 

16  See  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  opposite  p.  32,  for  map  of 
the  Carolina  (1665)  and  Georgia  (1732)  grants,  superimposed  upon  a  map 
of  the  northern  Spanish  border. 

17  Arredondo’s  Historical  Proof  of  Spain’s  Title  to  Georgia,  edited  by  H. 
E.  Bolton  (1925),  was  an  elaborate  and  generally  sound  refutation  of 
English  claims,  written  in  1742  by  the  chief-of-staff  in  the  Spanish  cam¬ 
paign  against  Georgia. 


10 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


through  the  Bahama  Channel  was  threatened;  so  too  were  the 
most  numerous  missions  north  of  Mexico.  An  incident  in 
May,  1670,  convinced  the  Carolinians  of  the  Spaniard’s  desire 
‘to  cut  us  off  if  possibly  he  can.’  A  Barbadian  sloop,  separated 
by  a  storm  from  the  fleet,  put  in  by  mistake  at  Santa  Catalina 
de  Guale.  A  landing-party,  hunting  wood  and  water,  was  at¬ 
tacked  by  the  Indians,  several  men  were  killed,  and  two  others, 
including  John  Rivers,  a  kinsman  of  Lord  Ashley,  sent  away 
prisoners  to  St.  Augustine.  Governor  Sayle  despatched  a  per¬ 
emptory  demand  for  their  release,  but  his  messengers  were  also 
seized  at  Santa  Catalina.  The  arrest  of  these  colonists  and  their 
detention  for  several  years  in  Florida  became  a  subject  of  diplo¬ 
matic  remonstrance.18  Meanwhile,  Governor  Guerra  sent  a 
force  from  Florida  to  oust  the  intruders  at  Ashley  River. 
Three  ships  sailed  northward,  under  command  of  Juan  Menen- 
dez  Marques,  accompanied  by  fourteen  periagoes  of  Indians. 
In  mid-August  the  Carolinians  were  warned  by  friendly  Indians 
that  the  Spanish  ‘with  all  the  Indians  about  Ste.  Augustine 
and  the  Spanish  Keyes’  were  about  to  attack.  Great  guns  were 
mounted  and  defenses  hastily  improvised.  The  danger,  though 
exaggerated,  was  real.  Neither  the  ship  Carolina,  sent  to  Vir¬ 
ginia  for  provisions,  nor  the  sloop  despatched  to  Bermuda  had 
returned.  Starvation  already  threatened,  and  now  the  Spanish 
fleet  blockaded  Charles  Town  bar  while  the  Guale  Indians 
hovered  about  the  Stono  inlet.  But  a  storm  dragged  the  Span¬ 
iards’  anchors,  and  the  ships  withdrew  without  an  attempt 
upon  the  town.  After  the  Carolina  returned  the  Spanish  Indians 
soon  melted  away.  The  first  crisis  had  been  passed.  It  had  served 
to  demonstrate  the  friendship  of  the  neighboring  tribes  and 
the  usefulness  of  Woodward  as  Indian  agent.  ‘All  the  Indians 
about  us,’  Lord  Ashley  was  told,  ‘came  with  their  full  Strength 
to  our  Ayde.’19 

At  St.  Augustine  Guerra  gave  way  to  Zendoya,  and  the 
fortification  of  the  presidio  was  begun.  The  new  governor  still 
hoped  to  remove  the  English,  in  spite  of  the  inconvenient  treaty 
of  1670,  which  for  at  least  two  years  Zendoya  omitted  to  pub- 

“  CSCHS,  V.  169-71,  173  f.,  175,  204,  209.  ‘Letter  from  Joseph  Baily, 
[December  12,]  1672,’  edited  by  W.  E.  Dunn,  in  SCHGM,  XVIII.  54-56. 
Guerra  to  the  King,  July  12,  1673,  in  The  Unwritten  History  of  Old  St. 
Augustine,  compiled  by  Miss  A.  M.  Brooks,  [St.  Augustine?],  [1909?],  pp. 
116-20. 

19  CSCHS,  V.  179,  185,  187,  194  f„  198-200,  288. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


11 


lish,  that  he  might  be  freer  to  act.  The  Queen,  indeed,  author¬ 
ized  him  in  1671  to  drive  the  English  away  from  Santa  Elena, 
but  without  breaking  the  articles  of  peace.  While  Zendoya 
looked  for  aid  to  Havana  and  the  Viceroy,  the  projected  San 
Jorge  campaign  slumbered.20 

In  a  very  real  sense  the  conflict  thus  begun  on  the  Carolina- 
Florida  border  was  a  continuation  of  the  old  festering  dispute 
in  the  Caribbean.  The  leaders  at  Charles  Town,  many  of  them 
Barbadians,  were  not  likely  to  forget  past  scores.  In  September, 
1670,  Dalton  described  to  Ashley  the  proximity  of  the  Span¬ 
iards,  ‘whose  clandestine  actions  both  domesticke  and  forraigne 
are  not  unknown  to  your  Ldp  nor  can  be  blotted  out  of  the 
memoryes  of  the  West  India  planters.’  In  the  main  it  was  a 
hopeful  view  of  the  strategic  situation  of  Carolina  which  he 
presented.  Others  agreed  that  Spanish  prestige  was  declining 
among  the  tribes  of  the  southern  Atlantic  coast.  ‘Since  Searle 
playd  that  pranck  att  St.  Augustin,’  William  Owen  declared, 
‘som  of  the  most  Intelligible  (sic)  Indians  on  this  side  the  Cape 
doubted  of  the  verity  of  the  frier’s  Doctrine  and  now  our  settl¬ 
ing  here  putts  the  priests  our  neighbors  upon  new  points.’ 
Already  Owen  foresaw  expansion  southward  towards  the 
Guale  missions,  and  believed  that  the  Spanish  would  be  easily 
displaced.  The  real  difficulty  was  for  the  English  to  maintain 
their  reputation  among  the  friendly  tribes  without  violating  the 
peace  at  home.  ‘Our  owne  Indians,’  he  said,  ‘Looke  upon  it 
somthing  strange  that  we  doe  not  goe  to  Wallie  and  shoote  as 
they  call  it,  that  they  may  come  along.’21 

Old  Charles  Town  was  now  made  strong  against  Indian 
attack.  By  September,  1670,  thirty  acres  at  the  point  had  been 
surrounded  by  a  palisade :  a  thousand  Indians,  it  was  believed, 
could  be  withstood.  In  1672  the  militia  was  organized  into  six 
companies.22 

“Royal  instructions,  June  20,  1671,  and  Zendoya  to  the  Crown,  March 
21,  1672,  Brooks  transcripts  from  the  Archives  of  the  Indies,  Seville,  in 
Library  of  Congress.  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  34  f.  On 
defense  preparations  in  Florida,  see  Brooks  (comp.),  Unwritten  History, 
pp.  130-35. 

21  CSCHS,  V.  183,  198,  200. 

32  Ibid.,  189,  203,  222,  267,  284,  378  f.  Journal  of  the  Grand  Council  of 
South  Carolina  (hereinafter  cited  JGC),  edited  by  A.  S.  Salley,  Jr.,  1907, 
July  9,  1672.  See  ibid,  under  November  11,  1671,  January  10,  August  24,  and 
September  9,  1672,  regarding  desertions  to  Florida,  and  fears  on  this 
account. 


12 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Sandford’s  companions  had  prophesied  in  1666  ‘that  this 
Country  may  bee  more  Securely  sett  [1] ed  and  cheaply  defended 
from  any  the  attempts  of  its  native  Inhabitants  than  any  of 
those  other  places  which  Our  Count [rjymen  have  refined  from 
the  Drosse  of  Indian  Barbarisme.’23  The  hospitable  attitude  of 
the  coast  towns  of  the  Cusabo24  was  due  to  fear  of  the  Span¬ 
iards  and  their  allies  of  Guale,  and  especially  to  their  dread  of 
the  small  but  warlike  inland  tribe  of  Westo.  ‘As  for  them  at 
home  we  have  them  in  a  pound/  Owen  assured  Lord  Ashley, 
‘for  to  the  Southward  they  will  not  goe,  fearing  the  Yamase, 
a  Spanish  Comeraro  as  the  Indian  terms  it.  The  Westoes  are 
behind  them  a  mortall  enemie  of  theirs  ...  of  them  they  are 
more  afraid  than  the  little  children  of  the  Bull  beggers  in  Eng¬ 
land.’25  When  the  colonists  touched  at  Port  Royal,  in  March, 
1670,  they  had  seen  distressing  evidence  of  a  recent  raid.  The 
Westo,  ‘a  rangeing  sort  of  People,’  were  then  settled  together 
‘in  an  intier  body’  on  the  Savannah  River,  which  the  Caro¬ 
linians  consequently  first  knew  as  the  Westobou,  or  Westo 
River.  By  trade  with  Virginia  these  Indians  had  already  ob¬ 
tained  arms  and  ammunition,  and  had  thus  become  formidable 
out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers  in  their  constant  en¬ 
counters  with  the  bow-and-arrow  Indians  of  Carolina  and 
Guale.  For  a  decade  Carolina  Indian  policy  was  largely  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  colonists’  relations  with  this  remarkable  tribe.26 

In  establishing  first  contacts  with  the  Indians,  and  in  inland 
exploration,  for  fifteen  years  the  chief  role  was  played  by 
Henry  Woodward.  Lord  Ashley,  with  the  keen  business  in¬ 
stinct  that  made  him  the  first  colonial  adventurer  of  his  day, 
was  quick  to  appreciate  Woodward’s  usefulness  in  his  own 
schemes.  On  Ashley’s  motion,  in  the  spring  of  1671  the  Pro¬ 
prietors  voted  Woodward  a  reward  of  £100  out  of  the  common 
stock,  ‘which,’  he  wrote  Sir  John  Yeamans,  ‘is  not  all  we 
intend  to  do  for  him.’27  Woodward  had  been  eager  to  return 

23  CSCHS,  V.  82. 

24  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  31-80. 

25  CSCHS,  V.  200-201. 

20  Ibid.,  pp.  166-8,  194.  On  the  identity  of  the  Westo  see  the  discussion 
between  J.  R.  Swanton  and  myself  in  Am.  Anthropologist,  n.s.,  XX.  331-6, 
XXI.  213-6,  463-5;  and  also  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  288-91.  Cf.  chapter 
ii,  note  50. 

22  CSCHS ,  V.  315  f. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


13 


to  England  with  the  report  of  a  mysterious  discovery  which 
he  had  made  in  his  explorations  inland,  but  the  Proprietors 
thought  he  could  not  yet  be  spared  from  Carolina.  The  dis¬ 
covery  in  question  had  occurred  during  his  journey,  circa  July, 
1670,  to  ‘Chufytachyqj  that  fruitfull  Provence  where  the  Em- 
perour  resides.’  For  a  fortnight  Woodward  had  marched  ‘West 
and  by  Northe’  until  he  reached  ‘a  Country  soe  delitious,  pleas¬ 
ant  and  fruitfull,  that  were  it  cultivated  doubtless  it  would 
prove  a  second  Paradize.’  He  reported  that  he  had  ‘contracted 
a  league  with  the  Empr.  and  all  those  Petty  Cassekas  bewixt  us 
and  them.’  A  thousand  bowmen,  it  was  said,  belonged  to  the 
town;  and  their  chief  was  accounted  ‘the  great  Emperor  of 
this  p[ar]te  of  the  Indies.’  Had  Woodward  found  De  Soto’s 
Cofitachique  ?  Though  several  Indians  returned  with  him,  the 
expected  inland  trade  was  not  developed  until  the  destruction 
of  the  Westo  opened  a  clear  path  to  the  Lower  Creek  country.28 

A  variety  of  motives  led  Woodward  and  other  early  ex¬ 
plorers  into  the  country  behind  Charles  Town.  ‘If  the  Porch  be 
so  beautifull,  what  must  the  Temple  be?’  wrote  Dalton  to  Ash¬ 
ley.29  Land,  mines,  Indian  trade,  Indian  wars,  played  their  part. 
In  the  spring  of  1671  Thomas  Gray,  Maurice  Mathews,  and 
William  Owen  visited  the  upper  courses  of  the  Ashley  and 
Cooper  Rivers  as  far  as  the  Kusso  town.  In  1673,  when  there 
was  war  with  the  Westo,  the  Grand  Council  sent  four  com¬ 
missioners  to  negotiate  with  the  ‘Esaughs’  or  Catawba,  who 
already  traded  with  Virginia,  and  two  other  commissioners 
were  despatched  southward  ‘for  the  better  knowledge  of  the 
maritime  parts’  between  Ashley  River  and  the  Westobou.  ‘The 
improvement  as  well  as  the  safety  of  this  Settlement,’  the 
Council  declared,  ‘consists  in  the  knowledge  of  the  lands  and 
inhabitants  contiguous  to  this  place.’30  But  soon  conservative 
]  colonists,  possibly  with  the  early  experiences  of  Virginia  in 

28  Ibid.,  pp.  186  f.,  191,  194,  201,  218,  220,  249,  262,  316,  327,  334,  338.  The 
first  map  of  Carolina  to  indicate  any  of  the  inland  tribes,  Gascoyne’s  Plat, 
circa  1685,  based  on  Mathews’  survey  (B.M.  Add.  MSS  5414,  roll  24),  shows 
‘Cotuchike’  on  the  Santee  River  a  little  distance  above  the  forks,  below  the 
‘Esah’  (Catawba).  I  no  longer  regard  as  probable  the  suggested  identification 
of  this  town  with  Kasihta,  first  advanced  by  Langdon  Cheves.  See  Missis¬ 
sippi  Valley  Historical  Review  (hereinafter  cited  as  MV  HR),  V.  339, 
note  2. 

29  CSCHS,  V.  380. 

30  Ibid.,  pp.  334-5,  JGC,  October  7,  1673,  February  2,  1674. 


14 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


mind,  were  advising  that  ‘remote  discoveries’  be  prohibited.  ‘It 
may  be  dangerous,’  one  remarked,  ‘to  follow  the  fancies  of 
roveing  heads  which  the  English  have  sufficiently  experienced.’ 
Lord  Ashley  was  of  the  same  opinion.  In  May,  1671,  he  in¬ 
structed  Sayle  to  ‘bind  the  peoples’  mindes  wholy  to  planting 
and  trade,’  their  only  true  interests,  and  to  suppress  exciting 
rumors  of  treasure  in  the  back-country.  Woodward’s  mysteri¬ 
ous  journey  prompted  special  precautions  against  private  ad¬ 
ventures  in  that  quarter,  lest  the  Spaniards,  learning  thus  of 
the  proximity  of  the  Carolinians,  should  unite  all  their  forces 
to  cut  them  off.  Conflicts  with  Florida  Ashley  was  anxious 
to  avoid  in  the  interest  of  a  projected  secret  trade  with  St. 
Augustine.31 

But  the  proprietary  policy  on  exploration  was  not  alto¬ 
gether  negative.  With  his  servant,  Woodward,  Ashley  arranged 
a  code  so  that  the  discovery  of  gold  and  silver  could  be  secretly 
communicated  to  him  !32  At  exactly  this  period,  moreover,  Sir 
William  Berkeley — a  Proprietor  of  Carolina  as  well  as  gover¬ 
nor  of  Virginia — was  promoting  that  noteworthy  series  of 
explorations  from  the  James  which  led  to  the  first  recorded 
discoveries  by  Englishmen  in  the  trans-Appalachian  West.33 
Naturally  knowledge  of  the  activities  of  the  German  traveler, 
Lederer,  and  of  the  agents  of  the  Virginia  Indian  trader, 
Colonel  Abraham  Wood,  soon  passed  to  the  Proprietors  in 
England.  Lederer  accomplished  little  more  than  a  series  of 
journeys  of  uncertain  extent  into  the  Virginia-North  Carolina 
piedmont  and  foot-hills.  The  Blue  Ridge  defied  his  attempts. 
But  the  book34  which  Sir  William  Talbot  made  out  of  his 
papers  had  a  real  bearing  upon  Carolinian  exploration.  Pub¬ 
lished  in  London  in  1672,  it  was  dedicated  to  Lord  Ashley. 
The  unique  advantage  of  Carolina’s  location,  at  the  southern 
end  of  the  great  mountain  barrier,  did  not  escape  Talbot.  ‘From 

31 CSCHS,  V.  316,  327-8,  380,  442. 

32  Ashley  to  Woodward,  April  10,  1671 :  ‘Pray  call  gold  alwayes  Antimony 
and  Silver  Iron  by  which  I  shall  be  able  to  understand  you  without  any 
danger  if  your  letters  should  fall  into  other  hands’  (ibid.,  316-7). 

33  See  Alvord  and  Bidgood,  First  Explorations,  especially  pp.  61-90,  131- 
226. 

31  The  Discoveries  of  John  Lederer,  in  three  several  Marches  from  Vir¬ 
ginia,  to  the  West  of  Carolina,  and  other  parts  of  the  Continent.  Trans¬ 
lated  from  Latin  by  Sir  William  Talbot,  Baronet.  London,  1672.  Re¬ 
printed  in  Alvord  and  Bidgood,  First  Explorations,  pp.  135-71. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


15 


this  discourse  it  is  clear,’  he  asserted,  ‘that  the  long  looked-for 
discovery  of  the  Indian  Sea  does  nearly  approach;  and  Caro¬ 
lina  out  of  her  happy  experience  of  your  Lordship’s  success  in 
great  undertakings,  presumes  that  the  accomplishment  of  this 
glorious  Designe  is  reserved  for  her.  In  order  to  which,  the 
Apalataeari  Mountains  (though  like  the  prodigious  Wall  that 
divides  China  from  Tartary,  they  deny  Virginia  passage  into 
the  West  Continent)  stoop  to  your  lordships  Dominions,  and 
lay  open  a  Prospect  into  unlimited  Empires.’  Lederer’s  con¬ 
jectures  regarding  the  land  beyond  the  mountains  and  the  fabled 
arm  of  the  sea  stretching  from  California  to  the  Appalachians, 
were  wild  enough,  but  he  offered  pertinent  comment  upon  the 
Indians  and  their  ways,  and  upon  the  proper  organization  of 
the  trade  with  the  remoter  tribes.  These  pages,  and  also  his 
‘Instructions  to  such  as  shall  march  upon  Discoveries  into  the 
North-American  Continent,’  were  doubtless  read  by  Ashley 
with  particular  attention.  Already,  in  September,  1671,  Colonel 
Wood  had  despatched  Batts  and  Fallam  upon  the  journey  which 
led  from  Fort  Henry  to  one  of  the  sources  of  the  Ohio  River. 
By  a  coincidence  Henry  Woodward  was  in  Virginia  at  that 
moment  upon  a  secret  mission  for  Sir  John  Yeamans.35  In 
1673  Wood  sent  out  another  party,  headed  by  James  Needham, 
erstwhile  companion  of  Woodward  in  Carolina.36  Needham 
and  Gabriel  Arthur  penetrated  to  the  mountains  and  visited  the 
Tamahita  Indians,  neighbors  of  the  Cherokee.  They  found  evi¬ 
dence  of  a  former  trade  with  the  Spaniards,  now  interrupted. 
Needham  returned  to  Virginia,  but  on  a  second  attempt  to 
reach  the  mountains  he  was  murdered  by  the  Occaneechi.  His 
travels  and  his  death  were  narrated  in  a  letter  from  Wood  to 
John  Richards,  who  became  the  Proprietors’  business  agent. 
Wood  also  recounted  the  extraordinary  adventures  of  the 
servant,  Arthur,  who  was  carried  by  Tamahita  war-parties  on 
marches  which  perhaps  extended  to  Apalache,  the  Carolina 
border,  and  the  headwaters  of  the  Ohio.37  With  the  annotations 
of  John  Locke  this  epic  of  English  exploration  inevitably  found 
its  way  to  Lord  Ashley,  now  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.38 

35  CSCHS,  V.  188  note,  329  note,  338,  349,  354,  388,  411. 

33  Ibid.,  345,  411,  453.  Alvord  and  Bidgood,  First  Explorations,  p.  79  note. 

37  Alvord  and  Bidgood,  p.  81,  identify  Tamahita  with  Cherokee.  But  see 
Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  184-9,  with  regard  to  this  mysterious  tribe. 

38  CSCHS,  V.  453. 


16 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Though  the  mountains  did  indeed  ‘stoop’  to  Shaftesbury’s 
western  dominions,  the  time  was  not  ripe  for  emulating  the 
Virginians.  It  was  not  until  1679  that  Robert  Holden,  of  Albe¬ 
marle,  was  commissioned  to  undertake  discoveries  beyond  the 
Appalachians;  a  similar  commission  was  issued  to  Woodward 
in  1682. 39  But  Shaftesbury,  meanwhile,  was  bent  upon  de¬ 
veloping  the  trade  with  the  inland  tribes.  In  1674  he  was  busily 
promoting  his  abortive  project  for  a  seigniory  at  Edisto,  where, 
free  from  the  interference  of  the  men  of  small  estates  who 
controlled  the  Ashley  River  council,  he  meant  to  experiment 
with  cattle  and  crops,  develop  a  clandestine  commerce  with  the 
Spaniards  and  a  trade  with  the  Indians.  Andrew  Percival,  a 
kinsman,  was  his  principal  agent,  but  Woodward  was  em¬ 
ployed  ‘in  the  management  of  the  trade  and  treaty  of  the 
Indians.’  In  May,  1674,  he  was  ordered  ‘to  settle  a  Trade  with 
the  Indians  for  Furs  and  other  Comodities,’  with  the  promise 
of  a  one-fifth  profit  for  his  pains.  ‘You  are  to  consider,’ 
Shaftesbury  directed,  ‘whether  it  be  best  to  make  a  peace  with 
the  Westoes  or  Cussitaws  [Kasihta]  which  are  a  more  power- 
full  nation  said  to  have  pearle  and  silver  and  by  whose  As¬ 
sistance  the  Westoes  may  be  rooted  out.’40  In  October  Wood¬ 
ward  found  an  opportunity  to  open  the  inland  trade  when  ten 
Westo  appeared  at  St.  Giles’,  Shaftesbury’s  other  plantation 
near  the  head  of  Ashley  River.  Alone,  he  returned  with  them 
to  their  town  on  the  Savannah  River,  a  week’s  journey  west¬ 
ward.  ‘Hickauhauga’  (Rickahogo)  he  described  as  a  palisaded 
village  of  long  bark  houses,  on  the  west  bank,  almost  enclosed 
by  a  bend  of  the  stream.  There  he  was  greeted  by  a  ‘concourse 
of  some  hundred  of  Indians,  drest  up  in  their  anticke  fighting 
garbe.’  It  was  the  village  of  a  warlike  tribe :  under  the  steep 
banks  seldom  lay  fewer  ‘than  one  hundred  faire  canoes  ready 
uppon  all  occasions.’  With  their  arms  from  Virginia  they  had 
been  able  not  only  to  terrorize  the  coastal  tribes  but  even  to 
make  war  upon  the  Yuchi,  the  Cherokee,  and  the  Lower  Creeks. 
The  immediate  result  of  Woodward’s  daring  ‘Westo  voyage’ 
was  that  trade  was  opened  from  St.  Giles’  plantation  for  ‘deare 

39  Public  Record  Office,  Colonial  Office  Records  (hereinafter  cited  as 
C.O.),  286,  pp.  131,  207. 

40  CSCHS,  V.  439-46. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


17 


skins,  furrs  and  younge  Indian  slaves.’41  From  1674  to  1680 
the  Westo  alliance  formed  the  cornerstone  of  the  South  Caro¬ 
lina  Indian  system.  The  Westo  were  supplied  with  arms  and 
were  expected  to  protect  the  province  by  overawing  the  Spanish 
Indians  and  all  other  potential  enemies. 

Soon  after  this  event  the  Spanish  became  uneasily  aware 
of  the  expanding  English  sphere  of  influence.  In  1675  it  was 
known  at  Apalache  from  a  Chi  sea  (Yuchi)  woman  who  had 
escaped  from  slavery  in  Carolina  that  Englishmen  were  teach¬ 
ing  the  Chichimecos  or  Westos  to  attack  Florida  and  destroy 
Timucua  and  Apalache.  Other  rumors  reached  Apalache  that 
same  year  of  the  arrival  of  four  Englishmen  from  the  new 
colony  at  an  unnamed  inland  town,  five  days  from  the  Chatot 
of  the  lower  Apalachicola  River,  ‘for  the  purpose  of  exploring 
and  laying  waste  the  land.’42  Had  Woodward  already  followed 
Shaftesbury’s  instructions  to  treat  with  Kasihta?  If  not  in 
1675,  then  probably  soon  after.  The  Proprietors  in  1677  es¬ 
tablished  a  complete  monopoly  of  the  trade  with  the  inland 
tribes  ‘of  the  Westoes  and  Cussatoes  [Kasihta],  two  powerful 
and,  warlike  nations,’  whose  countries,  they  recalled,  had  been 
discovered  ‘at  the  charge  of  the  Earle  of  Shaftesbury,  .  .  . 
and  by  the  Industry  and  hazard  of  Dr.  Henry  Woodward,  and 
a  strict  peace  and  Amity  made  between  them’  and  the  Caro¬ 
linians.43  In  1680  began  a  series  of  Indian  incursions  into 
Guale  under  English  incitement.  By  the  Spanish  they  were  at¬ 
tributed  to  the  ‘Chichumecoes,  Uchizes,  and  Chiluques,’  that  is, 
to  the  Westo,  Lower  Creeks,  and  Cherokee.44 

Until  1680  the  Carolinians  were  involved  in  no  Indian  wars 
of  any  consequence,  although  frequent  minor  collisions  occurred 
between  the  settlers  and  the  tribes  along  the  fringe  of  the 
colony.  Out  of  these  early  clashes  developed  the  notorious  traffic 

41  Henry  Woodward  to  Shaftesbury,  December  31,  1674:  ‘A  Faithful 
relation  of  my  Westo  voiage  begun  from  the  head  of  Ashley  River  the 
tenth  of  Octr.  and  finished  the  sixth  of  Novbr.  Following’  (ibid.,  456-62). 
See  my  note  in  Am.  Anthropologist,  n.s.,  XX.  332. 

42  ‘Plans  for  the  Colonization  and  Defense  of  Apalache,  1675’  (documents 
from  the  Archives  of  the  Indies,  Seville,  audiencia  of  Santo  Domingo,  58-2-5, 
translated  and  edited  by  Katherine  Reding),  in  GHQ,  IX.  174  f. 

43  C.O.  5  :286,  pp.  120  f.  Printed  in  W.  J.  Rivers,  A  Sketch  of  the  History 
of  South  Carolina  to  the  Close  of  the  Proprietary  Government,  1856,  Ap¬ 
pendix,  pp.  388-90. 

44  DocumentoS  histdricos  de  la  Florida  y  la  Luisiana,  siglos  XVI  al 
XVIII,  edited  by  Mfanuel]  S[errano]  y  S[anz],  Madrid,  1912,  pp.  216-19. 


18 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


in  Indian  slaves,  in  which  South  Carolina  achieved  a  bad 
eminence  among  the  English  colonies.  Encroachments  upon 
Indian  lands,  unfair  treatment  in  trade,  destruction  of  Indian 
crops  by  the  settlers’  cattle — common  incidents  of  a  frontier — 
provoked  Indian  reprisals.  The  colonists,  too,  often  complained 
of  the  destruction  of  their  cattle  and  hogs  in  Indian  hunts. 
Sometimes  Englishmen  were  murdered,  as  by  Westos  in  1673 
and  Kussos  the  following  year,  and  unless  prompt  satisfaction 
was  offered,  punitive  expeditions  were  sent  out.  Spanish  in¬ 
trigue  was  believed  to  be  an  irritant.  ‘The  fryers,’  Owen  had 
predicted  in  1670,  ‘will  never  cease  to  promote  their  tragick 
ends  by  the  Indian  whom  they  instruct  onlye  to  admire  the 
Spanish  nation.’  In  1671  the  Kussos  were  accused  of  conspir¬ 
ing  with  Florida  to  cut  off  the  colony,  and  ‘open  war’  was  or¬ 
dained.  By  its  league  with  the  small  coast  tribes,  moreover, 
the  province  was  obliged  to  guard  them  against  their  enemies. 
This  was  the  principal  cause  alleged  in  1680  for  the  breach 
with  the  Westo.  Friction  with  the  natives  was  inevitable.  But 
the  Proprietors  were  perhaps  not  far  wrong  when  they  charged 
that  wars  were  begun  under  specious  pretexts,  with  the  real 
aim  of  enslaving  the  Indians.  The  first  official  recognition  of 
the  practice  came,  apparently,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  campaign 
against  the  Kusso  in  1671,  when  the  Grand  Council  ordered 
‘that  every  company  who  went  out  upon  that  expedition  shall 
secure  and  maintaine  the  Indians  they  have  taken  till  they  can 
transport  the  said  Indians.’  In  inception,  then,  Indian  slavery 
was  a  means  to  secure  volunteers  for  border  defense,  and  for 
this  purpose  it  was  sanctioned  by  the  Proprietors.  But  soon  it 
developed  into  a  flourishing  business,  and,  later,  into  a  cruelly 
efficient  engine  of  encroachment  upon  the  spheres  of  influence 
of  England’s  rivals  in  the  South  and  West.45 

A  decade  of  frontier  expansion  had  raised  up  two  issues, 
charged  with  controversy,  between  the  colonists  and  the  Lords 
Proprietors.  One  was  Indian  slavery.  The  other  was  the  pro¬ 
prietary  monopoly  of  the  inland  Indian  trade.46  Both  were  in- 

43  C.O.  5  :288,  pp.  16-19.  CSCHS,  V.  197.  JGC,  September  27,  October  2, 
1671 ;  June  1,  18,  July  2,  6,  9,  22,  September  8,  1672;  February  24,  March  4, 
September  3,  16,  October  4,  7,  1673 ;  February  2,  July  25,  August  3,  Novem¬ 
ber  10,  1674 ;  December  10,  1675. 

46  See  below,  pp.  118-9. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


19 


volved  in  the  tangle  of  clashing  interests  and  policies  which 
resulted  in  the  downfall  of  the  Westo. 

In  spite  of  Woodward’s  journey,  or  perhaps  because  of  the 
proprietary  character  of  the  affair,  relations  between  the  col¬ 
onists  and  the  Westo  continued  to  be  disturbed.  After  all,  the 
Westo  alliance  was  chiefly  profitable  to  the  Proprietors  and  to 
their  agent,  Woodward.  The  order  of  1677  affirmed  a  complete 
proprietary  monopoly  of  trade  with  the  Westo,  Kasihta,  and 
the  Spanish  Indians  beyond  Port  Royal,  confining  the  planters, 
among  whom  were  a  number  of  restless  commercial  spirits,  to 
the  trade  with  the  settlement  tribes.  The  Proprietors’  insistence 
that  this  policy  was  conceived  mainly  for  the  safety  of  the 
colony  and  not  ‘merely  out  of  a  designe  of  gaine,’  was  no  doubt 
received  with  reservations.  In  1677,  following  two  murders  by 
the  Westo,  they  were  forbidden  to  enter  the  settlement  beyond 
the  trading-plantations  on  the  border :  St.  Giles’,  Walley’s  plan¬ 
tation,  and  Sewee.  This  order  was  renewed  in  1680. 47  But 
Westo  attacks  upon  the  Cusabo  continued.  Indeed,  the  Grand 
Council,  which  reflected  the  prejudices  of  the  private  Indian 
traders,  charged  in  June,  1680,  that  Woodward  himself  had 
incited  the  Westo  to  these  raids.48  A  war  against  the  Westo 
seems  to  have  been  eagerly  desired  by  the  private  traders  and 
slave-dealers,  who  were  powerful  in  the  Charles  Town  gov¬ 
ernment.  Wars  brought  slaves,  and  slaves  commanded  profits 
in  the  West  Indies.  The  sending  away  of  Indians,  the  Pro¬ 
prietors  charged,  made  the  Westo  War.49 

In  the  spring  of  1680,  two  envoys,  both  trading-planters 
and  slave-dealers,  James  Moore  and  John  Boone,  were  sent  by 
the  governor  and  council  to  treat  with  the  Westo.  Woodward 
seems  to  have  opposed  their  mission,  suspecting,  perhaps,  an 
ulterior  motive.  Parleys  were  renewed,  in  April,  at  Walley’s 
plantation,  but  war  soon  followed.  The  Grand  Council  laid  an 
embargo  upon  all  intercourse  with  the  Westo,  and  Woodward 
was  placed  under  heavy  bonds  to  refrain  from  trade.  In  the 
ensuing  campaigns  the  Carolinians  found  allies  in  the  Savannah 
Indians,  a  migrating  group  of  Shawnee,  recent  comers,  ap- 

47  JGC,  July  14,  1677 ;  April  12,  1680. 

48  Ibid.,  June  4,  23,  24,  1680. 

49  C.O.  S  :288,  p.  17. 


20 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


parently,  from  west  of  the  mountains.  By  their  aid  the  Westo 
were  defeated,  without  ‘much  Blood  shed,  or  Money  spilt,’  as 
an  early  chronicler  recorded.  In  1683  the  Proprietors  were  told 
that  not  fifty  Westo  remained  alive  and  those  in  scattered 
bodies.  A  decade  later,  the  remnant,  after  retiring  northward, 
settled  as  a  town  among  the  Lower  Creeks,50  but  soon  vanished 
from  the  maps. 

The  power  of  the  Westo  had  been  broken  before  the  Pro¬ 
prietors,  whose  policy  in  Indian  affairs  was  set  at  nought, 
could  intervene.  At  first  they  hoped  to  restore  peace,51  but 
when  it  appeared  that  the  Westo  were  ‘ruined’  they  urged  that 
‘some  other  Nation  .  .  .  whose  Government  is  lesse  An- 
archicall’  be  set  up  in  their  place,  ‘that  shall  be  furnished  by  us 
with  Arms  and  Ammunition  .  .  .  which  will  keep  your  Neigh¬ 
bours  the  stricter  united  to  you,  and  deterr  the  Northern  and 
Spanish  Indians  from  dareing  to  infest  you.’52  At  the  same 
time  Shaftesbury,  who  seems  in  his  disgrace  to  have  contem¬ 
plated  an  asylum  in  Carolina,53  with  Colleton  privately  in¬ 
structed  Percival  and  Maurice  Mathews  to  get  an  act  from  the 
provincial  parliament  restraining  the  new  trade  to  themselves 
alone.54  But  this  attempt  to  restore  the  essence  of  the  pro¬ 
prietary  monopoly  system  failed.  That  system  had  been  forever 
destroyed  by  the  Westo  War.  Thereafter  the  interest  of  the 
Proprietors  in  Indian  policy,  and  their  influence,  steadily 
declined.  Their  complete  failure  to  put  down  the  traffic  in  Indian 
slaves,  to  which  the  Westo  War  gave  a  notable  impetus,  was 
significant  of  their  failing  authority.55  The  downfall  and  exile 
of  Shaftesbury  removed  the  most  energetic  of  the  Proprietors, 
the  Englishman  of  his  generation  most  active  in  promoting 
western  adventures.  Woodward’s  commission  of  1682  to  ex- 

“  JGC,  April  12,  June  1,  4,  23,  24,  1680.  John  Oldmixon,  The  British  Em¬ 
pire  in  America,  1708,  I.  337,  reprinted  in  Salley  (ed. ) ,  Narratives,  p.  329. 
Letter  from  Thomas  Newe,  Charles  Town,  May,  1680,  ibid.,  p.  183.  Am. 
Anthropologist,  n.s.,  XX.  332,  336. 

61  C.O.  5:286,  pp.  153  f. 

“Ibid.,  p.  169,  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial  Series,  America  and 
West  Indies  (hereinafter  cited  as  CSPyAWI) ,  1681-1685,  pp.  16  f. 

“Historical  Manuscripts  Commission,  Calendar  of  Ormonde  MSS,  n.s., 
VI.  154;  and  Tenth  Report,  Appendix,  part  IV.,  p.  173  (Throckmorton 
MSS). 

“Letter  dated  March  9,  1680/1,  in  C.O.  5:286,  p.  164. 

“  See  below,  pp.  139-40. 


FIRST  CONTACTS 


21 


plore  the  interior  and  find  a  passage  over  the  mountains  was 
one  of  the  last  instances  of  positive  proprietary  intervention  in 
frontier  affairs. 

For  a  time  the  Savannah  Indians  became  the  successors  of 
the  Westo.  These  immigrants  soon  ‘united  all  their  tribes’  and 
seated  themselves  in  a  place  of  great  strategic  importance  at 
the  fall-line  on  the  Westobou,  to  be  called  thereafter  the  Sa¬ 
vannah  River.  For  a  decade  or  so  the  Carolinians  regularly 
supplied  them  with  arms,  and  purchased  slaves  taken  in  their 
raids  upon  their  enemies :  fugitive  Westo,  Winyahs  from  the 
North  Carolina  border,  Appomatox  from  Virginia,  Cherokee 
from  the  mountains,  and  Chatot  from  near  the  Gulf  of  Mex¬ 
ico.56  But  unlike  the  Westo,  the  Savannah  were  unable  to 
hinder  the  further  rapid  extension  of  the  English  Indian  trade 
into  the  great  southern  wilderness.  Soon  Savannah  Town  be¬ 
came  the  entrepot  for  a  commerce  with  the  Cherokee,  the  tribes 
of  the  Tennessee  River,  and  the  Lower  Creeks.  After  1680  the 
trading  expansion  of  South  Carolina  began  in  earnest. 

“8  C.O.  5:288,  p.  16.  Court  of  Ordinary  Records,  1672-1692  (MSS,  Co¬ 
lumbia,  S.  C.),  under  dates  of  May  31,  October  14,  15,  20,  1681:  permits 
for  the  exportation  of  Indian  slaves. 


CHAPTER  II 

Carolinian  Expansion  in  the  Seventeenth  Century 


The  two  decades  from  the  Westo  affair  to  the  outbreak  of 
Queen  Anne’s  War  saw  but  meagre  growth  in  the  area  of 
settlement  in  South  Carolina,  or  in  the  number  of  planters. 
In  1700  the  population  of  the  province  was  a  scant  five  thou¬ 
sand,  mostly  living  within  a  few  miles  of  Charles  Town, 
though  now  the  Port  Royal  region  was  also  attracting  settlers. 
The  transition  .from  mixed  farming  and  cattle_raismg^to_  rice 
culture  was  just  beginning,  and  with  it. the  development  of 
negro  slavery.1  But  in  another  sort  of  enterprise  this  weak 
border  province  had  revealed  forces  of  expansion  without 
parallel  in  the  English  colonies.  Neglected  by  the  Proprietors, 
unsupported  by  the  Crown,  the  Carolinians  had  contrived  to 
push  the  first  frontier  of  the  province,  the  frontier  of  the 
Indian  trade  and  of  Indian  alliances,  farther  into  the  wilder¬ 
ness  than  English  traders  elsewhere  were  wont  to  venture. 
Before  the  end  of  the  century,  therefore,  they  were  in  contact 
and  keen  rivalry  not  only  with  the  Spanish  of  Florida,  but  also 
with  the  French  in  the  region  of  the  Gulf  and  the  lower 
Mississippi. 

Throughout  the  colonial  period,  the  Indian  trade  was  the 
chief  instrument  of  Carolinian  expansion.  Other  forces,  to  be 
sure,  played  a  part.  In  an  age  of  projects  this  debatable  land 
of  the  South  became  the  favorite  field  for  colonial  promoters. 
The  record  of  these  schemes,  from  the  days  of  Doncaster  and 
Cardross  and  Coxe  to  those  of  Montgomery  and  Purry  and 
Oglethorpe,  reveals  a  significant  transition  from  the  seven¬ 
teenth-century  era  of  colonization  to  that  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  with  the  westward  movement  as  the  new  setting.  The 
colony  promoters,  even  those  who  failed,  helped  to  advertise 
the  South  as  a  land  of  vast  promise,  and  to  awaken  the  gov¬ 
ernment  at  home  to  its  special  strategic  importance.  But,  mean¬ 
while,  the  actual  penetration  of  the  southern  wilderness  and  the 


1  Edward  McCrady,  The  History  of  South  Carolina  under  the  Pro¬ 
prietary  Government,  1670-1719,  1897,  p.  316.  U.  B.  Phillips,  American 
Negro  Slavery,  1918,  p.  87.  On  the  occupation  of  the  southern  border,  see 
below,  pp.  162-3. 


[22] 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


23 


spread  of  English  influence  was  accomplished  under  other 
auspices,  by  obscure  and  often  nameless  explorers  and  traders. 

More  than  any  other  English  colony,  except  possibly  New 
York,  South  Carolina  was  favored  by  geography  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  a  western  Indian  trade.  The  mountain  ranges,  so 
long  an  effective  obstacle  to  penetration  from  Virginia  and 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  were  easily  avoided  by  all  but  the 
Cherokee  traders.  Nor  did  any  southern  tribes  in  imitation  of 
the  Iroquois  maintain  the  role  of  middlemen  in  the  interior 
trade,  and  thus  block  the  advance  of  the  English  traders.2  Yet 
Carolina  was  geographically  less  fortunate  than  either  Florida 
or  Louisiana.  The  Spanish  could  reach  the  Lower  Creek  towns 
by  the  Apalachicola  River,  and  the  French,  once  Mobile  was 
established,  had  easy  water  carriage  to  the  Alabama,  Talapoosa, 
and  Abikha.  The  Carolina  traders  had  to  convey  their  goods 
on  the  backs  of  Indian  burdeners  or  on  packhorses  by  overland 
paths  which  intersected  nearly  all  the  important  rivers  of 
southeastern  North  America.  However,  even  possession  of 
the  water-routes,  and  the  finesse  which  the  Latins  everywhere 
displayed  in  Indian  diplomacy,  were  more  than  offset  by  the 
superiority,  as  complete  in  the  South  as  in  the  North,  of  Eng¬ 
lish  trade.  The  fundamental  reason  for  the  successes  of  the 
English  in  the  tortuous  politics  of  the  wilderness  was  pithily 
expressed  by  the  first  provincial  Indian  agent  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina.  In  1708  Thomas  Nairne  asserted  that  ‘the  English  trade 
for  Cloath  alwayes  atracts  and  maintains  the  obedience  and 
friendship  of  the  Indians,  they  Effect  them  most  who  sell  best 
cheap.’3  Moreover,  one  important  and  peculiar  branch  of  the 
Carolina  trade,  the  commerce  in  Indian  slaves,  depending  as  it 
did  upon  intertribal  wars,  was  extraordinarily  wasteful  in  its 
effects,  and  led  to  rapid  penetration  of  the  interior.  Then,  too, 
the  South  Carolina  trade  was  actively  fostered  by  the  provincial 
government.  Indeed,  the  leaders  in  the  government  and  in  the 
trade  were  identical.  Charges  of  monopolistic  practises  were 
freely  made  against  the  great  traders  who  controlled  the  council 

2  See  Wraxall,  An  Abridgement  of  the  Indian  Affairs,  1678-1751,  1915, 
especially  the  Introduction,  pp.  xlii,  lxii-lxiv ;  A.  H.  Buffinton,  ‘The  Policy 
of  Albany  and  English  Westward  Expansion,’  in  MVHR,  VIII.  327-66; 
Helen  Broshar,  ‘The  First  Push  Westward  of  the  Albany  Traders,’  ibid., 

|  VII.  228-41. 

3C.O.  5:382  (11). 


^24  THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 

and  assembly.  But  the  frontier  interests  of  men  like  Joseph 
Blake  (deputy-governor,  1696-1700)  and  James  Moore  (gov¬ 
ernor,  1700-1702)  had  a  consequence  for  the  colony  unrecog¬ 
nized  by  their  critics.  At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century 
the  Indian  trade  was  weaving  a  web  of  alliances  among  tribes 
distant  many  hundreds  of  miles  from  Charles  Town.  Blake 
and  his  successor,  active  promoters  of  the  trade,  developed  a 
conception  of  the  destinies  of  the  English  in  that  quarter  of 
America  notably  in  advance  of  the  parochial  ideas  of  Pro¬ 
prietors  and  provincials  alike;  in  advance,  too,  of  the  notions  of 
policy  of  the  imperial  government  itself.4 

The  crucial  event  of  the  seventeenth  century  on  the  Caro- 
lina-Florida  border  was  the  collapse  of  the  Spanish  missions 
of  Guale  in  the  face  of  the  English  traders’  advance.  Thus  was 
begun,  on  this  frontier,  the  long  process  of  dissolution  of 
Spanish  authority  in  North  America. 

In  the  main,  Spanish  Indian  policy  was  benevolent  and 
pacific.  Though  converted  Indians  were  sometimes  employed 
against  unfriendly  tribes  or  against  the  English,  the  Spanish 
were  loath  to  place  firearms  in  the  hands  of  their  allies.  Both 
in  Guale,  and,  later,  in  Apalache,  this  proved  a  fatal  weakness 
in  view  of  the  aggressive,  disintegrating,  Indian  policy  of  the 
English.  Very  early,  Indians  in  the  English  league  were  en¬ 
couraged  to  direct  their  raids  against  the  allies  of  the  Span¬ 
iard.5  In  1680  the  first  blow  fell  in  Guale.  Three  hundred  In¬ 
dians,  Westo,  Cherokee,  and  Creek,  attacked  Guadalquini  and 
Santa  Catalina,  ‘cabega  y  frontera  a  estos  enemigos.’  The 
raiders  were  stood  off,  but  the  mission  Indians  in  alarm  now 
deserted  Santa  Catalina,  and  the  garrison  was  withdrawn  to 
Zapala.6  The  Spanish  retreat  had  begun.  From  St.  Augustine 
the  governor,  Salazar,  protested  vigorously  to  Charles  Town 
against  Dr.  Woodward’s  anti-Spanish  intrigues  among  the 
‘Chichimecas’  and  other  border  Indians,  and  threatened  retali¬ 
ation.7  But  the  ravages  of  the  English  Indians  continued, 

*  AH R,  XXIV.  380  and  note  4. 

5  GHQ,  IX.  174  f. 

“Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.),  Documentos,  pp.  216-9.  Brooks  (comp.),  Un¬ 
written  History,  pp.  137-9 ;  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  36  f. 

'  C.O.  5 :286,  pp.  165,  166.  A  Spanish  punitive  expedition  in  1682  was 
described  in  a  colonist’s  letter  from  Charles  Town,  printed  in  Salley  (ed.), 
Narratives,  pp.  185  f. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


25 


pirates  again  descended  upon  the  coast,  and  from  1680  to 
1683  the  missions  rapidly  disintegrated.  Though  Zapala  was 
strengthened  by  a  casa  fuerte,  hope  of  reoccupying  Santa 
Catalina  was  abandoned.8  Meanwhile,  the  terrorized  mission 
Indians  retired  southward,  or  fled  to  the  woods.  It  was  ap¬ 
parently  the  ill-judged  attempt  of  Governor  Cabrera  to  remove 
the  Guale  Indians  in  a  body  to  the  islands  of  Santa  Maria  and 
San  Juan,  out  of  the  range  of  northern  attacks,  that  precipi¬ 
tated  the  final  revolt  of  Guale  in  1684.9  Spanish  authority  was 
further  undermined  by  direct  commercial  penetration  from 
the  north.  Part  of  the  Guale  Indians  deserted,  declared  the 
chronicler  Barcia,  because  the  English  had  ‘persuaded  them  to 
give  them  obedience.’  The  Carolina  traders  were  invading  the 
coast  region  as  well  as  the  back-country.10 

The  Indian  exodus  from  Guale  was  accomplished  in  three 
or  four  distinct  migrations  between  1684  and  1703.  Most  of 
the  frightened  or  disaffected  Indians  fled  first  into  the  interior, 
to  the  Creek  towns  of  Kasihta  and  Coweta.  Only  in  1685  did 
they  emerge  on  the  immediate  border  of  Carolina.  A  small 
group,  however,  had  already  resorted  directly  to  the  region  of 
Port  Royal  sound,  led  by  the  chief  Altamaha.  There  they  be¬ 
came  neighbors  of  the  Scots  whom  Lord  Cardross  had  brought 
over  in  1684  to  establish  a  Covenanters’  refuge  in  America. 
Altamaha  first  settled  upon  St.  Helena  Island,  then  Hilton’s 
Head  Island  was  also  assigned  him  by  Cardross  ‘to  be  as  an 
Outguard  to  us.’11  The  Yamasee  chief  warned  Cardross  that 
more  Indians  would  follow ;  but  it  was  with  astonishment  and 
alarm  that  the  Port  Royal  pioneers  viewed  the  great  influx  of 
1685.  Early  in  January  the  St.  Helena  band  was  joined  by  re¬ 
volted  mission  Indians  ‘from  about  St.  Augustine,’  described 
as  ‘Sapello,  Soho  [Asao],  and  Sapickay  [Tupiqui].’  Soon  the 

8  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  38  f. 

0  [Andres  Gonzalez  Barela],  Ensayo  cronologico,  para  la  historia  general 
de  la  Florida,  Madrid,  1723,  p.  287.  Compare  Escudero  (1734),  cited  in 
Swanton,  Early  History,  p.  96;  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land, 
pp.  39  f. 

10  Barcia,  Ensayo,  p.  287.  In  1677  the  Proprietors  issued  a  license  to 
Solomon  Blackleech  to  trade  ‘from  Ashley  River  with  the  Spaniards  or 
any  Indians  dwellinge  near  or  amongst  them.’  C.O.  5  :286,  p.  130.  In  1684 
Caleb  Westbrooke  was  established  as  a  trader  at  St.  Helena,  near  Port 
Roval  (C.O.  5:287,  pp.  136,  142).  See  below,  note  28a. 

11  Ibid.,  p.  142. 


26 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


main  body  of  the  Yamasees  appeared  on  the  lower  Savannah, 
on  the  march  from  the  Lower  Creek  country  to  their  new 
habitat  in  South  Carolina.  A  thousand  or  more  had  arrived  in 
February,  wrote  the  trader  Westbrooke,  and  daily  more  were 
expected.12  By  this  migration  and  its  sequel,  the  removal  of 
Yewhaws  (Yoa)  in  1702-1703,13  northern  Florida — seacoast 
and  lower  coastal  plain — was  deserted  by  practically  all  of  the 
natives.  From  Santa  Catalina  the  Spanish  mission  frontier  re¬ 
treated  to  Santa  Maria  (Amelia  Island),  and  to  San  Juan 
(Talbot  Island).14  To  the  English  in  consequence  soon  passed 
the  hegemony  of  the  whole  region  north  of  peninsular  Florida. 
The  route  of  their  traders  into  the  interior  was  safeguarded 
against  flank  attack  from  the  east. 

The  bitterness  of  the  Spanish  defeat  in  Guale  was  enhanced 
by  a  new  intrusion  south  of  the  region  guaranteed  to  England 
by  the  treaty  of  1670.  In  1684,  Henry  Lord  Cardross  began 
his  proposed  settlement  of  a  border  county  at  Port  Royal, 
under  patent  from  the  Lords  Proprietors.15  Intended  as  an 
asylum  for  Covenanters,  this  short-lived  colony  belongs  in  a 
notable  category  of  seventeenth-century  enterprises.  The  fate 
of  Stuart’s  Town,  extinguished  in  a  Spanish  raid  of  1686, 
furnished  a  striking  prologue  for  the  drama  of  Darien.  In 
border  history  the  episode  had  a  significance  of  its  own. 

In  1672  Colonel  Lockhart’s  plan  for  a  colony  of  Scotch 
Presbyterians  in  Carolina  had  come  to  nought,16  but  a  decade 
later  increasing  persecutions  revived  the  scheme.  Indeed,  two 
Separate  projects  for  southern  colonization  by  Scots  were 
brought  forward  in  1682.  The  Lords  of  Trade  frowned  upon 
the  petition  of  James,  Earl  of  Doncaster  and  Dalkeith,  for  a 
great  proprietary  grant  of  ‘Florida,  Cape  Florida,  and  Guiana,’ 
and  laid  down  a  policy  of  opposition  to  further  proprietary 

12  Ibid.,  pp.  136,  142. 

13  See  below,  p.  76. 

11  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Laud,  p.  41.  In  1699  the  castaway 
Quaker,  Jonathan  Dickenson,  with  his  party,  visited  these  missions  on  the 
way  from  St.  Augustine  to  Charles  Town,  and  left  an  account  of  them  in 
his  God’s  Protecting  Providence  (third  edition,  London,  1720),  pp.  79,  84, 
et  passim.  Pertinent  passages  from  a  la-ter  edition  are  cited  in  Swanton, 
Early  History,  pp.  92  f. 

15  G.  P.  Insh,  Scottish  Colonial  Schemes.  1620-1686.  Glasgow,  1922,  chap¬ 
ter  vi,  is  the  best  narrative,  but  ignores  the  trade  rivalry  which  underlay 
the  controversy  with  Charles  Town. 

18  Bishop  Burnet’s  History  of  His  Own  Time,  1724,  I.  526. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


27 


grants.  The  Spanish,  Doncaster  had  argued,  could  hardly  claim 
to  hold  the  unoccupied  portions  of  Florida  by  virtue  only  of 
‘two  small  Castles.’17  Meanwhile,  certain  Presbyterian  leaders, 
Cardross,  Sir  John  Cochrane  of  Ochiltree,  and  Sir  George 
Campbell,  after  considering  New  York  as  an  asylum,18  were 
attracted  to  Carolina  by  the  promise  of  religious  toleration,  by 
the  prestige  of  Shaftesbury,  and,  perhaps,  by  the  batch  of  pro¬ 
motion  pamphlets  which  were  issued  in  1682. 19  From  the 
Proprietors  they  received  a  patent  to  one  whole  county,  remote, 
by  the  width  of  one  or  two  counties,  from  the  existing  settle¬ 
ments,  with  the  privilege,  later,  of  taking  up  another  county.20 
In  the  fall  of  1682  commissioners  were  sent  out  to  explore  the 
best  rivers  in  Carolina.21  Port  Royal,  the  intended  goal  of  the 
1669  expedition,  and  recently  shown  in  some  detail  on  the 
Gascoyne  map,  was  now  chosen  as  the  site.22  But  the  Carolina 
project,  unquestionably  a  bona  fide  venture,  became  entangled 
in  the  Whig  conspiracies  which  culminated  in  the  Rye  House 
Plot.23  It  was  not,  therefore,  until  1684  that  the  enterprise  was 
set  on  foot,  and  then  upon  a  considerably  diminished  scale.  In 

17  C.O.  1 :49,  nos.  30,  30 (i),  57,  71 ;  CSP,AWI,  1681-1685,  pp.  278  f.,  296, 
305.  The  Lords  of  Trade  reported  ‘that  it  is  not  convenient  ...  to  consti¬ 
tute  any  new  propriety  in  America’  (ibid.,  p.  296). 

“Insh,  Scottish  Colonial  Schemes,  pp.  193  f. 

19  Ibid.,  pp.  187-90.  In  1682  were  printed  the  following  tracts  advertising 
Carolina:  T.  A[she],  Carolina;  or  a  Description  of  the  Present  State  of 
that  Country;  R.  F.,  The  Present  State  of  Carolina  with  Advice  to  the 
Setters;  a  broadside  abbreviated  from  the  last  pamphlet,  entitled  A  True 
Description  of  Carolina,  probably  printed  to  accompany  Joel  Gascoyne’s 
A  New  Map  of  the  Country  of  Carolina  of  the  same  year;  and  [Samuel 
Wilson],  An  Account  of  the  Province  of  Carolina  in  America. 

20 Letters  ...  to  George,  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  edited  by  John  Dunn,  Aber¬ 
deen  (The  Spalding  Club),  1851,  pp.  58,  59  and  note.  There  is  some  con¬ 
fusion  in  the  documents  as  to  the  number  of  counties,  but  Cardross  later 
asserted  he  had  liberty  to  take  up  a  second.  C.O.  5  :287,  f.  139. 

21  Insh,  Scottish  Colonial  Schemes,  p.  198. 

22  Sir  John  Cochrane  to  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  June  15,  1683,  in  Letters 
...  to  George,  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  p.  127 :  ‘The  account  I  have  received 
from  our  pilots,  sent  their  to  vieu  the  country,  is  so  good,  that  I  doubt  not 
but  we  shall  carry  on  a  considerable  plantation,  to  the  great  advantage  of 
the  nation.  I  have  sein  a  description  of  the  river  Port  Royal  in  ane  exact 
map.  It  seems  to  be  a  very  desirable  place  to  plant  upon.’  The  reference 
was  probably  to  the  Gascoyne  map,  on  which  see  W.  C.  Ford,  ‘Early  Maps 
of  Carolina,’  in  Geographical  Review,  XVI.  273.  On  March  4,  1684,  the 
Proprietors  directed  their  governor  to  permit  the  Scots  to  settle  at  Port 
Royal  (C.O.  5:287,  f.  129). 

23  Insh,  Scottish  Colonial  Schemes,  pp.  190-3,  199-201.  Cf.  L.  F.  Stock 
(ed.),  Proceedings  and  Debates  of  the  British  Parliaments  respecting  North 
America,  1924,  I.  451. 


.28 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


July  the  Carolina  Merchant  sailed  from  Currock  with  less  than 
a  hundred  colonists,24  among  them,  however,  a  few  men  of 
real  ability.  In  the  more  prosperous  days  following  the  Revo¬ 
lution  Lord  Cardross  became  a  Privy  Councillor  in  Scotland, 
and  William  Dunlop  the  Principal  of  the  University  of  Glas¬ 
gow.25  The  Scottish  refugees  were  in  general  folk  of  a  class 
superior  to  the  old  Barbadians  and  the  English  and  Irish 
planters  and  servants  who  made  up  the  colony  at  Ashley  River. 
They  were  therefore  promised  a  separate  court  of  justice  for 
their  county,  and  the  Fundamental  Constitutions  were  modified 
to  meet  their  views.26  At  the  Proprietors’  bidding,  Maurice 
Mathews  had  already  extinguished  the  Indian  title  to  the 
region,  and,  indeed,  to  the  whole  area  south  of  Ashley  River, 
westward  to  the  mountains.27  Arrived  at  Port  Royal,  Cardross 
built  a  small  settlement  at  the  Spanish  Point,  which  he  named 
Stuart’s  Town.28  At  home  the  Proprietors  counted  confidently 
upon  a  rapid  emigration  from  Scotland  to  this  promising 
colony.  They  were  doomed  to  disappointment.  Bitter  controver¬ 
sies  arose  between  Stuart’s  Town  and  Charles  Town,  which 
checked  the  growth  of  the  new  settlement,  and  exposed  it  to 
Spanish  attack.  Underlying  these  untimely  disputes  was  the 
effort  of  Cardross  to  control  the  expanding  Indian  trade  with 
the  Yamasee  and  the  Creeks. 28a 

24  Insh,  Scottish  Colonial  Schemes,  pp.  203  f. 

20  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  XVI.  209;  XVII.  408. 

2‘ Letters  and  instructions  of  March  4,  June  25,  28,  1684,  in  C.O.  5:287. 

27  South  Carolina  Assembly,  Report  of  the  Committee,  appointed  to  ex¬ 
amine  into  the  Proceedings  of  the  People  of  Georgia,  1737,  Appendices  2, 
2b.  Cf.  C.O.  5  :288,  p.  100. 

“  John  Erskine,  Journal,  edited  by  Walter  Macleod,  Publications  of  the 
Scottish  History  Society,  XIV.,  p.  139;  Warrants  for  Lands  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  1680-1692,  1911,  edited  by  A.  S.  Salley,  Jr.,  p.  179:  head-right  warrants 
to  Cardross  for  850  acres  for  himself  and  sixteen  others,  to  Dunlop  for  1150 
acres  for  himself  and  twenty-two  others.  See  Warrants  for  Lands,  1692- 
1711,  1915,  p.  155  regarding  the  site;  also  Gascoyne,  ‘Plat,’  circa  1685  (B.M. 
Add.  MSS  5414,  roll  24). 

““This  interpretation,  which  I  set  forth  briefly  in  MVHR,  XII.  23-25, 
is  completely  confirmed  by  an  important  document  which  has  appeared  in 
the  Scottish  Historical  Review,  XXV.  100-4,  while  these  pages  are  in  press. 
It  is  a  letter  from  Cardross  and  Dunlop  to  Sir  Peter  Colleton,  from 
Stuart’s  Town,  March  27,  1685.  It  contains  an  interesting  account  of  the 
settlement  of  the  Scots’  colony,  reduced  to  fifty-one  men  by  sickness  at 
Charles  Town,  fear  of  Spanish  invasion,  and  by  the  persuasions  of  the 
Carolinians.  ‘We  discovered  likewayes  the  mouth  of  the  West[o]  river, 
and  went  up  the  same  a  good  way,  and  went  near  to  Saint  Catharina,  which 
we  hear  the  Spaniards  have  desarted  on  the  report  of  our  setling  here,  and 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


29 


Even  before  the  coming  of  the  Yamasee,  Port  Royal  had 
acquired  importance  in  the  Charles  Town  Indian  trade.  The 
traders  were  discovering  that  the  best  route  to  their  new 
western  base  at  Savannah  Town  was  the  inland  water  passage 
from  Ashley  River  to  Yamacraw,  and  thence  up  the  Savannah 
River.  But  this  route  passed  right  through  the  Scots’  domain. 
Late  in  March,  1685,  John  Edenburgh,  a  Charles  Town  trader 
on  his  way  to  the  Yamasees,  was,  he  deposed,  haled  to  Stuart’s 
Town  and  warned  by  Lord  Cardross  ‘that  noe  Englishman 
should  trade  from  Sta.  Helena  to  the  Westoe  River  for  all  the 
Indians  was  his  and  that  noe  Englishman  should  trade  between 
the  Westoe  River  and  St.  Katherina  for  that  hee  had  taken 
up  one  County  and  had  liberty  to  take  up  another  County.’29 
Cardross  thus  claimed  an  exclusive  trade  southward  into  Guale, 
where,  apparently,  he  expected  to  expand  his  colony  now  that 
the  friars  were  in  retreat.  A  few  weeks  later  Henry  Wood¬ 
ward  was  arrested  at  Yamacraw,  on  the  Savannah  route  to  the 
interior,  though  he  carried  an  extraordinary  commission  from 
the  Lords  Proprietors  for  inland  exploration.  For  a  time  after 
the  Westo  War  the  adventurous  Doctor  had  fallen  under  a 
cloud.  He  had  been  fined  at  Charles  Town  for  his  dealings 
with  the  Westo,  and  censured  by  the  Proprietors.  But  a  voyage 
to  England  had  procured  him  pardon  and  complete  reinstate¬ 
ment.  His  commission  obtained  at  that  time,  was  a  noteworthy 

we  desyre  this  summer  to  vew  it  and  tak  possessione  of  it  in  his  Majesties 
name  for  the  behove  of  the  lords  proprietors.’  If  it  proved  necessary  for 
the  Proprietors  to  secure  a  new  patent  from  the  King  to  this  region  as 
‘formerlie  in  the  Spanish  dominions,’  the  Scots  hoped  to  be  remembered. 
They  tempted  Colleton  further  with  the  prospect  of  opening  a  trade  thence 
to  New  Mexico, — ‘which  if  effectuated  wold  be  a  matter  of  vast  importance 
both  to  you  and  us.  We  are  in  order  to  this  plan  laying  down  a  method  for 
correspondence  and  treade  with  Cuita  [Coweta]  and  Cussita  [Kasihta] 
nations  of  Indians,  who  leive  upon  the  passages  betwixt  us  and  New 
Mexico,  and  who  have  for  severall  yeirs  left  off  any  Comercie  with  the 
Spaniards;  but,  Sir,  these  our  endeevors  do  already  provock  the  Inevey  of 
severall  particular  persones,  who,  meinding  their  own  privat  Intrist  mor 
than  that  of  the  lords  proprietors  or  good  of  the  province,  doe  so  grudge 
both  at  the  situation  of  this  place  doth  give  us  advantage  for  trade  more 
than  these  and  that  they  find  us  ready  to  improve  that  advantage,  that  they 
do  opres  our  designe  and  endevour  to  render  us  contemptible  in  the  eyes  of 
i  the  Indians  about  us.’  They  alluded  to  their  friendly  relations  with  the 
Yamasee,  ‘admited  to  setle  heire  within  our  bounds  by  the  Government  of 
Charlestoun  the  last  year  since  our  contract  with  you.’  To  secure  Colleton’s 
support  for  their  projected  Creek  trade  they  proposed  that  he  ‘put  in  with 
us  for  a  share.’ 

29  C.O.  5  :28 7,  p.  139. 


30 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


document  in  the  history  of  English  exploration.  It  recited  the 
benefits  to  the  Crown  and  the  Proprietors  from  having  ‘the 
Inlands  of  our  Province  of  Carolina  well  discovered  and  what 
they  doe  containe  and  also  a  passage  over  the  Apalateans  Moun- 
taines  found  out.’30  But  Cardross,  according  to  the  affidavits 
of  Woodward  and  his  companions,  refused  to  honor  this  paper 
‘for  that  it  was  to  encourage  trade  to  which  hee  had  as  much 
right  as  any  of  them.’31  Cardross’s  interference  postponed,  but 
did  not  long  prevent  Woodward’s  great  western  adventure. 
Summer  found  the  explorer  on  the  Chattahoochee,  challenging 
Spanish  influence  among  the  Creeks.32 

Cardross  inevitably  failed  in  this  ambitious  attempt  to  en¬ 
gross  the  southern  Indian  trade.  His  contest  with  Charles 
Town  in  its  later  stages  was  obscured  by  personal  recrimina¬ 
tion  and  by  disputes  over  jurisdiction.  Meanwhile,  cooperation 
for  defense  was  neglected,  and  Stuart’s  Town  was  exposed  to 
certain  Spanish  revenge.33 

By  the  Spaniards  all  settlements  in  Carolina  were  regarded 
as  intrusions  into  Florida,  but  especially  those  south  of  Ashley 
River,  for  so  the  Council  of  the  Indies  read  the  meaning  of 
the  Treaty  of  Madrid.  Nor  were  officials  like  Governor  Cabrera 
accustomed  to  discriminate  nicely  between  the  pirates  and  the 
colonists  who  sheltered  them.  And  now  the  Spaniards  were 
further  wantonly  provoked  by  the  reckless  Indian  policy  of  the 
Scots.  Yamasee  were  employed  from  Port  Royal  in  incursions 
upon  the  mission  province  of  Timucua;  there  is  evidence  that 
they  were  incited  by  Lord  Cardross  himself  and  the  trader 
Westbrooke.34  Ample  precedent  might  be  found  in  the  practices 
of  the  Charles  Town  traders,  but  in  view  of  the  exposed  situ¬ 
ation  of  Stuart’s  Town,  Woodward,  who  was  not  likely  to  be 
squeamish,  was  justified  in  condemning  the  Timucuan  raid  of 
1685  as  ‘an  unadvised  project.’35  The  Proprietors,  too,  for  all 

30  C.O.  5  :28 7,  pp.  198-202,  207.  The  pardon  was  dated  May  23,  1682 ;  the 
commission,  May  18. 

31  C.O.  5  :287,  pp.  137  f. 

32  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  p.  48. 

33  Insh,  Scottish  Colonial  Schemes,  pp.  206-8.  Documents  relating  to  the 
controversies  between  the  Scots  and  Charles  Town,  and  attempts  to  arrest 
Cardross  and  other  leaders,  are  in  C.O.  5  :287,  ff.  136,  140,  141 ;  C.O.  5  :288, 
pp.  71,  73.  See  also  Rivers,  Sketch,  Appendix,  pp.  407  f. 

31  C.O.  5 :287,  p.  143. 

33  Ibid. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


31 


their  sympathy  with  Cardross,  were  convinced  that  this  affair 
provoked  the  Spanish  attack  in  the  next  year.36  Several  In¬ 
dians  who  took  part  in  the  destruction  of  Santa  Catalina  de 
Afuica  were  examined  on  their  return  by  Henry  Woodward. 
They  declared  that  the  Scots  had  armed  and  incited  them,  and 
that  they  had  ‘burnt  severall  Towns  and  in  particuler  the  Said 
Chappell  and  the  Fryers  house  and  killed  Fifty  of  the  Time- 
choes  and  brought  away  Two  and  twenty  Prisoners  which 
the[y]  delivered  to  the  Scotts  as  slaves.’37 

In  September,  1686,  Cabrera  took  his  revenge.  In  three 
small  vessels — a  galley  and  two  pirogues — one  hundred  Span¬ 
iards,  with  an  auxiliary  force  of  Indians  and  mulattoes,  de¬ 
scended  upon  the  Carolina  coast.  They  struck  first  at  Port 
Royal.  Sickness,  it  is  said,  had  left  not  more  than  twenty-five 
defenders  fit  to  bear  arms.  These  were  routed  with  some  casu¬ 
alties,  Stuart’s  Town  was  burned,  and  the  infant  Scotch  settle¬ 
ment  destroyed.  Thence  the  raiders  ranged  northward  to  the 
Edisto,  where  more  plantations  were  plundered;  among  others, 
the  houses  of  Governor  Morton  and  of  the  secretary,  Paul 
Grimball,  were  put  to  the  torch.  But  a  hurricane  frustrated  the 
attack  on  Charles  Town.  Two  of  the  Spanish  craft  were 
wrecked.  In  one  perished  the  commander,  Tomas  de  Leon;  in 
the  other,  by  English  account,  the  governor’s  brother-in-law,  a 
captive  in  irons,  was  burned  to  death  when  the  vessel  with  its 
plunder  was  set  on  fire  by  the  retreating  Spaniards.  The  whole 
country  was  now  alarmed,  and  the  raiders  retired  with  the 
remnant  of  their  booty  and  their  captured  slaves  to  the  presidio 
of  St.  Augustine.38 

Though  little  love  was  lost  between  the  Scots  and  the 
English,  and  the  latter  were,  perhaps,  not  sorry  that  an  obstacle 
to  their  trading  expansion  was  removed,  the  colony  was  in  a 
flame  at  the  Spanish  invasion  in  time  of  peace,  with  its  alleged 
atrocities.  Parliament  was  hastily  summoned,  and  an  act  was 

38  C.O.  5:288,  pp.  121,  160;  CSP.AWI,  1685-1688,  pp.  451f. 

3‘  C.O.  5:287,  p.  140;  Arredondo’s  Historical  Proof,  p.  157;  Brooks 
((comp.),  Unwritten  History,  p.  144;  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land, 
'  p.  40,  citing  other  Spanish  archival  sources. 

t  33  C.O.  1:61,  no.  18;  C.O.  5:288,  p.  106;  C.O.  38:2,  p.  109;  C.O.  323:3, 
i  E2;  CSP ,AWI ,  1685-1688,  pp.  295,  336;  Historical  Collections  of  South 
Carolina,  edited  by  B.  R.  Carroll,  1836,  II.  350  f. ;  Rivers,  Sketch,  Appendix, 
pp.  425,  443  f. ;  Historical  Magazine,  III.  298  f. ;  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  De¬ 
batable  Land,  pp.  41  f. 


32 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


passed  to  impress  men  and  ships  ‘to  persue,  attacque  and  (by 
God’s  grace)  to  vanquish’  the  enemy  wherever  they  might  be 
found.39  Two  French  privateers  were  soon  fitting  out,  so  the 
governor  of  Bermuda  reported,40  with  crews  of  Carolinians  and 
privateersmen.  There  was  reason,  apparently,  for  a  clause  in 
the  act  forbidding  the  use  of  the  vessels  for  any  other  purpose 
than  an  attack  on  the  Spanish.  But  a  new  governor,  Landgrave 
James  Colleton,  arrived  at  the  height  of  the  excitement  and 
put  an  end  to  the  expedition.  He  threatened,  indeed,  to  hang 
anyone  who  set  out  against  Florida.41  At  the  same  time  he 
approved  legitimate  measures  for  defense:  a  store  of  powder, 
galleys,  and  warning  beacons  on  the  coast  as  far  as  the  Sa¬ 
vannah.42  Colleton’s  caution  was  endorsed  by  the  Proprietors, 
who  were  not  easily  convinced  that  Spanish  officials  were 
actually  responsible  for  the  invasion,  and  who  threw  much 
blame  on  the  provocative  conduct  of  their  colonists.  Instead  of 
making  war  on  the  subjects  of  an  ally,  the  Carolinians  were 
admonished  to  negotiate  for  the  return  of  their  property  and 
the  redress  of  injuries.43  Cardross  was  commiserated  on  his 
losses :  ‘in  fitting  time’  the  Proprietors  promised  to  apply  to 
the  King  for  reparation.44  This  pacific  policy  was  borne  with 
ill  grace  by  the  Carolinians,  among  whom  was  a  growing  anti¬ 
proprietary  party.  In  1699  Edward  Randolph,  who  had  an  ear 
attuned  to  such  scandal,  said  that  he  had  learned  the  truth 
which  underlay  this  pusillanimity,  that  ‘there  was  a  design  on 
foot  to  carry  on  a  Trade  with  the  Spaniards.’45 

Not  only  was  Cabrera  sustained  at  home,  but  his  successor, 
Quiroga,  was  charged  in  1688  ‘to  continue  the  operations  be¬ 
gun  by  him  until  you  succeed  in  dislodging  the  enemies,  Scotch, 
English  and  Yamassees.’46  But  Quiroga  apparently  understood 
that  the  time  had  passed  for  a  successful  campaign  to  recover 

20  Statutes  at  Large  of  South  Carolina,  edited  by  Thomas  Cooper,  II. 
15-18  (act  of  October  15,  1686). 

“CO.  1:61,  no.  18;  C.O.  38:2,  p.  109;  CSP^iWI,  1685-1688,  p.  295. 

41  Ibid.,  pp.  451  f .  C.O.  5:288,  pp.  121-123.  Rivers,  Sketch,  Appendix,  pp. 
425  444. 

42  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  20  f.,  23-25. 

43  C.O.  5  :288,  pp.  106-7,  121 ;  CSP,AWI,  1685-1688,  pp.  336  f.,  451  f. 

44  C.O.  5 :288,  p.  109. 

45  Rivers,  Sketch,  Appendix,  p.  444;  and  see  charge  in  address  to  Sothell, 
ibid.,  p.  425. 

4”  Arredondo’s  Historical  Proof,  p.  345,  note  52. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


33 


Guale  and  Santa  Elena.  He  now  turned  to  negotiation.  About 
a  year  after  the  raid,  Bernardo  de  Medina,  an  officer  of  the 
garrison,  accompanied  by  a  friar,  appeared  at  Charles  Town. 
The  negotiations  that  ensued  were  typical  of  a  long  series  of 
futile  border  parleys.47  The  Spanish  denied  that  the  late  ex¬ 
pedition  had  been  commissioned  to  attack  the  English  king’s 
subjects  in  Carolina,  and  complained  of  the  bad  conduct  of 
the  Carolinians.  In  reply,  Colleton  had  first  to  deny  com¬ 
plicity  in  the  pirate  raids  into  Guale ;  he  also  disclaimed  re¬ 
sponsibility  for  the  actions  of  the  Yamasee,  ‘a  people  who  live 
within  our  bounds  after  their  own  manner  taking  no  notice  of 
our  Government.’  He  demanded  the  return  of  the  slaves  and 
plunder  carried  off  in  1686,  and  proposed  the  regular  delivery 
in  the  future  of  the  fugitive  slaves  and  servants,  ‘who  run 
dayly  into  your  towns.’  With  the  development  of  the  plantation 
regime  in  Carolina  this  grievance  became  increasingly  serious, 
and  furnished  the  theme  of  recurring  protests  to  the  Spaniards. 
Apparently  the  friar  had  instructions  to  persuade  the  Yamasee 
to  return  to  Florida.  A  demand  that  they  be  sent  back  Colleton 
refused.  Only  war,  he  declared,  could  accomplish  this,  as  they 
were  confederated  with  a  larger  nation,  the  Lower  Creeks. 

With  this  inconclusive  diplomatic  exchange,  the  conflict  in 
the  coastal  region  came,  temporarily,  to  an  end.  The  Spanish 
governor  continued  to  assert  the  inclusive  Spanish  claims,  and 
reported  to  Charles  Town  his  orders  from  Spain  ‘not  to  lett 
the  English  come  south  of  St.  Georges.’48  But  his  hands  were 
tied  by  the  Anglo-Spanish  partnership  in  the  Grand  Alliance, 
and  even  more  by  the  weakness  of  Florida.49  English  traders  | 
continued  to  win  over  the  Indian  allies  of  the  Spanish,  or  to 
reduce  them  to  slavery.  Meanwhile,  the  scene  of  active  conflict 
shifted  to  another  segment  of  the  Carolina-Florida  border. 

From  an  early  period  the  Carolinians  had  been  aware  of 
die  existence  of  the  great  Creek  confederation,  or  at  any  rate 
if  the  two  leading  towns  of  the  Lower  Creeks,  Coweta  and 
Kasihta.  Several  times  before  1681  they  had  established  con- 

41  Historical  Magazine,  III.  298  f. :  James  Colleton  to  Quiroga,  1687  or 
688,  original  in  Archives  of  the  Indies,  Seville;  Brooks  (comp.),  Unwritten 
'iistory,  p.  145  :  royal  orders  regarding  runaway  slaves. 

48  C.O.  5  :288,  p.  160. 

49  Brooks  (comp.),  Unwritten  History,  pp.  144  f. 


34 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


tacts  with  them.  But  it  was  not  until  the  Westo  barrier  was 
removed  that  the  Lower  Creek  trade  could  develop.  In  the 
midst  of  the  Westo  War  the  Lords  Proprietors  had  instructed 
Percival  and  Mathews  to  reopen  the  trade,  if  unsafe  with  the 
Westos,  with  the  ‘Chiscah  [Yuchi],  Sevanaes,  or  the  Cowi- 
taws.’  Soon  the  Lower  Creek  country  became  the  centre  of  the 
Carolinian  trading  regime.50 

The  Lower  Creeks,  called  Apalachicola  by  the  Spaniards, 
controlled  the  whole  interior  region  from  the  borders  of  Guale 
and  of  Carolina  northward  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Savannah, 
and  westward  to  the  Chattahoochee.  Several  times  in  the  course 
of  the  international  struggle  for  the  Indian  trade  in  the  South 
they  changed  their  village  sites.  At  this  epoch  their  towns  were 
located  on  the  middle  Chattahoochee,  near  the  falls,  within  easy 
distance  of  the  Spanish  presidio  of  San  Luis  and  the  missions 
of  Apalache.  From  Apalache,  indeed,  the  Spaniards  were  now 
engaged  in  a  series  of  efforts  to  convert  the  Apalachicola  to 
the  faith,  and  thus  translate  the  nominal  sovereignty  of  Spain 
into  a  real  dominion.  In  1679  the  first  attempt  to  establish  a 
mission  at  Sabacola  was  frustrated  by  the  head  chief  of  Co¬ 
weta,  whose  great  influence,  wielded  for  many  years,  won  him 
the  title  of  Emperor  both  in  Florida  and  in  Carolina.  In  1681 
the  Franciscans  again  appeared,  accompanied  by  soldiers.  But 
again  they  were  forced  to  withdraw.  This  time,  however,  they 
were  followed  by  their  converts,  and  the  mission  of  Santa  Cruz 
de  Sabacola  was  established  further  south,  at  the  junction  of 
the  Chattahoochee  and  the  Flint.51 

The  Spanish  suspected  that  English  intrigue  had  checked 
their  penetration  into  Apalachicola.  In  the  summer  of  1685, 
indeed,  the  Carolinians  appeared  in  person  upon  the  Chatta¬ 
hoochee.  Woodward,  in  spite  of  Cardross’s  interference,  had 
made  his  way,  the  accredited  proprietary  explorer  of  the  West, 
to  the  ‘court’  of  Coweta.  Both  at  Coweta,  the  ‘war  town,’  and 
Kasihta,  the  ‘peace  town,’  the  English  with  their  trading  goods 

50  C.O.  5 :286,  p.  164.  See  my  note  on  the  ‘Origin  of  the  Name  of  the 
Creek  Indians,’  in  MVHR,  V.  339-42.  The  Gascoyne  Plat,  circa  1685  (cited 
above,  note  28),  has  on  the  extreme  western  margin,  northwest  of  Sa¬ 
vannah  Town,  an  almost  illegible  statement  that  ‘here  begins  the  Chiscah 
country.’  The  Savannah  River  is  still  called  the  Westo  on  this  map. 

“Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  46-48;  Swanton,  Early  His¬ 
tory,  p.  130. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


35 


were  now  cordially  welcomed.52  In  the  Anglo-Spanish  conflict 
which  ensued  these  towns  became  the  strongholds  of  English 
influence.  They  were  the  leaders,  too,  in  the  resulting  migration 
of  the  Lower  Creeks  eastward  to  the  Ocmulgee  River,  nearer 
to  the  source  of  the  English  trade. 

In  Apalache  Lieutenant  Antonio  Matheos  was  in  command. 

At  word  of  Woodward’s  mission  he  led  a  force  of  Spaniards 
and  two  hundred  and  fifty  Christian  Indians  to  arrest  the  mis¬ 
chief-maker  and  to  punish  the  Indians  who  had  welcomed  him. 
Englishmen  and  recreant  Indians  fled  at  his  approach.  Wood¬ 
ward,  however,  left  a  letter  which  stated  the  objects  of  his 
proprietary  commission  in  challenging  terms : 

I  am  very  sorry  that  I  came  with  so  small  a  following  that  I  can¬ 
not  await  your  arrival.  Be  informed  that  I  came  to  get  acquainted 
with  the  country,  its  mountains,  the  seacoast,  and  Apalache.  I 
trust  in  God  that  I  shall  meet  you  gentlemen  later  when  I  have  a 
larger  following.  September  2,  1685.  Vale.53 

A  stockade  which  was  building  under  English  direction, 
above  the  falls,  Matheos  burned,  but  he  retired  without  achiev¬ 
ing  his  real  purpose.  Soon  the  Englishmen  were  back  in  the 
Creek  villages.  Meanwhile,  Cabrera  had  reinforced  the  Apa¬ 
lache  garrison.  In  December,  1685,  Matheos  was  despatched 
with  a  larger  force  to  demand  the  surrender  of  the  Carolinians,  W 
on  pain  of  the  destruction  of  the  Indian  towns.  Again  he  failed 
to  lay  hands  on  the  traders,  though  he  seized  peltry  and  trading 
goods  in  a  blockhouse  near  Coweta.  At  Coweta,  Matheos  man¬ 
aged  to  impose  submission  upon  eight  towns.  The  Indians  of 
Coweta,  Kasihta,  Tuskegee,  and  Kolomi  were  still  recalcitrant, 
and  in  punishment  their  villages  were  burned.  Under  this  blow 
the  two  latter  towns  professed  a  short-lived  repentance.  But 
Kasihta  and  Coweta  held  out,  and  spies  brought  rumors  that 
they  intended  to  desert  their  Chattahoochee  settlements.  Soon 
the  Charles  Town  traders  were  busy  again  along  the  Chatta¬ 
hoochee.  Woodward,  ill,  made  the  dangerous  journey  back  to 
Charles  Town  in  a  litter,  followed  by  one  hundred  and  fifty 
burdeners  laden  with  peltry.  This  enterprising  explorer  re- 

52  W.  E.  Dunn,  ‘Spanish  and  French  Rivalry  in  the  Gulf  Region  of  the 
United  States,  1678-1702,’  in  University  of  Texas  Bulletin,  no.  1705,  p.  71; 
Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  48  f. 

53  Ibid.,  p.  50. 


36 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


turned  no  more  to  the  Chattahoochee.  But  he  had  laid  the 
foundations  of  English  trade  and  alliance  in  the  old  Southwest. 
In  1687  other  traders  appeared  in  the  Creek  towns.  The  strug¬ 
gle  had  only  begun.  Quiroga  in  the  next  two  years  was  no 
more  successful  than  Cabrera  in  ousting  the  Carolinians.  In 
1689,  after  futile  negotiations,  he  sent  soldiers  under  Captain 
Primo  de  Rivera  to  build  a  Spanish  fort  in  the  heart  of  the  old 
Apalachicola  country.54 

From  1689  to  1691  the  Spanish  colors  waved  over  the  casa 
fuerte  of  Apalachicola — symbol  of  an  authority  which  became 
more  and  more  unreal.  Mission  and  presidio  had  failed  to  sus¬ 
tain  Spanish  dominion  in  Guale.  What  prospect  that  among  the 
Creeks,  the  shrewdest  Indian  politicians  of  the  South,  force 
or  persuasion  could  long  withstand  the  pushing  Charles  Town 
traders  with  their  desirable  goods?  What  actually  occurred,  as 
in  Guale,  was  the  wholesale  desertion  of  the  old  towns  on  the 
northwestern  border  of  Florida.  From  the  Chattahoochee  the 
Lower  Creeks  migrated  eastward,  about  1690,  to  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Altamaha.55  They  placed  most  of  their  new  towns 
along  the  upper  Ocmulgee,  known  to  the  English  as  Ochese 
Creek.  There  they  began  the  cultivation  of  the  broad  fields 
which,  long  after  these  in  turn  were  abandoned,  were  the 
marvel  of  the  botanist  Bartram.  Among  the  Ochese  Creek 
Indians,  or  the  Creeks,  as  they  were  soon  called  by  abbreviation, 
the  Carolinians  maintained  for  a  quarter-century  a  great  trad¬ 
ing  centre.56  Goods  were  transferred  at  Savannah  Town  from 
periagoes  to  pack-horses  or  Indian  burdeners,  and  carried  by 
two  paths  which  branched  near  the  Ogeechee  River.  One  led  to 
Coweta  Town,  the  other — the  Lower  Path — to  the  settlements 
of  the  Okmulgee  and  Hichiti. 

Until  1715  English  influence  was  paramount  among  the 
Lower  Creeks.  ‘These  people,’  declared  an  official  report  of  the 

“Ibid.,  pp.  50-54  (plan  of  fort  opposite  p.  48);  Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.), 
Documentos,  pp.  193-8  (report  of  Matheos,  1686,  misdated  1606)  ;  also  pp. 
219-21,  250. 

65  See  Iberville  (1702),  in  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  594  f.  This 
migration  was  first  clearly  established  by  Bolton  in  his  ‘Spanish  Resistance 
to  the  Carolina  Traders  in  Western  Georgia  (1680-1704),’  GHQ,  IX.  115-30; 
see  also  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  54  f.  Bolton  has  misread 
my  meaning  in  AHR,  XXIV.  381.  Kasihta  and  Coweta  were  Ochese  towns; 
I  identified  neither  with  Oconee. 

"  M  V HR,  V.  339-42. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


37 


early  eighteenth  century,  ‘are  Great  Hunters  and  Warriours 
and  consume  great  quantity  of  English  Goods.’57  With  keen 
realization  of  their  importance,  the  Carolina  authorities  from 
the  first  sought  to  preserve  and  exploit  the  Lower  Creek  al¬ 
liance.  In  1693  the  Commons  House  became  alarmed  at  the 
report  that  some  of  the  Westo  had  settled  among  the  Tuskegee, 
and  that  others  planned  to  join  the  Coweta  and  Kasihta.  All 
possible  means,  they  urged,  should  be  used  to  prevent  these 
old  enemies  from  corrupting  ‘our  friends.’58  The  Ochese 
country  soon  became  a  base  for  the  further  extension  of  trade. 
From  the  Ocmulgee  were  sent  out  many  of  those  slave-taking 
expeditions  against  Florida,  and,  later,  against  Louisiana, 
which  provided  an  outlet  for  the  warlike  energies  of  the  In¬ 
dians,  enriched  the  traders,  and  served  to  weaken  the  defenses 
of  the  rival  colonial  establishments  in  the  South. 

Creek  depredations  in  Florida  added  another  lively  subject 
of  dispute  between  St.  Augustine  and  Charles  Town.  Don 
Laureano  de  Torres  Ayala  protested  vigorously  to  ‘San 
Jorje.’59  But  Joseph  Blake,  a  notable  proponent  of  southwestern 
expansion,  merely  replied  with  a  blanket  claim  of  English 
sovereignty  over  these  Indians.60  Meanwhile,  Torres  had  sent 
out  a  punitive  expedition  of  four  hundred  Indians,  headed  by 
seven  Spaniards,  against  the  Indians  whom  he  chose  to  describe 
as  ‘disobedient  vassals’  of  Spain.  Fifty  captives  were  taken  in 
one  town,  but  elsewhere  the  Indians  had  burned  their  villages 
and  fled.61  This,  apparently,  was  the  ‘Difference  with  [i.e.,  be¬ 
tween]  the  Cursitaws  &c.  &  the  King  of  Spaines  Subjects’  of 
which  Blake  gave  an  account  to  the  Lords  Proprietors.  The 
Proprietors  counselled  peace,  and  admonished  the  new  Gov¬ 
ernor,  John  Archdale,  that  ‘wee  give  no  offence  to  that  Crowne 
that  is  in  league  with  us,  but  treat  the  Subjects  with  all  tender¬ 
ness  Imaginable.’62 

67C.O.  5:1264,  P  82. 

68  Journal  of  the  Commons  House  of  Assembly  (hereinafter  cited  as 
JCHA,  or  JCHA  when  references  are  to  manuscript  journals),  January 
13,  14,  1692/3. 

69  Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.),  Documentos,  p.  224. 

60  Ibid.,  p.  225. 

61  Ibid.  See  Swanton,  Early  History  p.  221,  and  Bolton  and  Ross,  The 
Debatable  Land,  p.  56,  note  2,  for  conflicting  statements  regarding  date  of 
this  expedition.  S  wanton’s  assumption  that  it  occurred  in  1685  (rather  than 
1684)  seems  to  be  confirmed  by  a  letter  of  Torres  to  Archdale,  January 
24,  1695/6,  in  Archdale  MSS,  Library  of  Congress. 

62  C.O.  5  :289,  p.  28. 

■  1 


38 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Governor  Archdale  was  a  Proprietor,  and  a  Quaker  as 
well,  and  so  disposed  to  conciliate  the  Spanish,  but  not  to  the 
point  of  yielding  any  substantial  English  interest.  Moreover, 
he  commissioned  Joseph  Blake,  neither  a  Quaker  nor  a  pacifist, 
deputy-governor  and  commander  of  the  militia  ;63  with  Blake’s 
expansionist  aims  he  later  professed  sympathy.64  Archdale,  to 
be  sure,  tried  to  discourage  the  Indian  slave-trade,  and  returned 
to  Florida  four  mission  Indians  captured  by  the  Yamasee  near 
Santa  Maria.65  Torres  thanked  him  in  January,  1696,  and 
promised  reciprocal  restitution,  but  renewed  his  complaints  as 
to  ‘the  Townes  of  Apalachicola  w[h]ich  belong  to  this  Govern¬ 
ment  and  has  always  Live[d]  under  our  obeissance  and  since 
a  Time  have  Revolted  from  it  and  Live  in  their  wickednesse 
and  Rebellion  committing  abundance  of  ill  and  murther  in  the 
Province  of  Apalache  having  Dispeopled  2  or  three  Townes.’ 
This,  he  said,  had  occasioned  the  late  punitive  expedition  and 
would  lead  to  further  chastisement.  ‘For  all  that  you  are  not  to 
believe  that  I  will  break  peace  with  you  because  those  na¬ 
tions  as  I  have  told  you  above  are  neither  vassals  nor  Subjects 
to  your  Government.’  But  Torres  asked  that  an  order  issue  to 
draw  back  from  Apalachicola  the  traders  who  incited  all  this 
mischief.66  Two  months  later  the  Spanish  governor  repeated 
his  charges  and  his  threats,  specifying  a  recent  raid  upon  the 
Chacatos.67  In  Archdale’s  reply,68  for  all  its  diplomatic  tone, 
was  a  firm  counter-assertion  of  English  mastery  in  the  disputed 
region,  and  a  warning  against  Spanish  intervention.  He  had 
sent  an  express  to  the  Okmulgees,  he  said,  to  forbid  hostilities 
against  the  vassals  of  Florida,  and  expected  a  like  order  from 
Torres.  Despite  the  revengeful  character  of  the  Indian,  he 
counted  on  ‘their  ready  obedience  to  our  Commands  to  prevent 
it  for  the  future.’  But  if  the  Indians  nevertheless  continued 
their  wars,  ‘I  desire  you  not  to  send  any  more  white  persons 

“  Secretary’s  record  of  commissions  and  instructions  (MSS,  Columbia, 
S.  C),  p.  124. 

64  John  Archdale,  A  New  Description  of  Carolina,  1707,  p.  31,  reprinted  in 
Carroll  (ed.),  Collections,  II.  119. 

65  Ibid.,  pp.  106  f. 

86  Archdale  MSS. 

87  Ibid.  Torres  to  Archdale,  March  21,  1696. 

88  Ibid.  Archdale  to  Torres,  April  4.  1696.  Cf.  Archdale,  Description, 
pp.  20  f.,  reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed.),  Collections,  II.  107.  Archdale  also  de¬ 
manded  payment  of  damages  for  the  raids  of  the  preceding  decade. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


39 


against  our  Indians  least  you  hereby  make  the  quarrel  nationall, 
and  lay  me  under  the  necessity  of  doing  the  like :  pray  consider 
the  Circumstances  of  our  European  Masters  and  Kings  and 
lett  nott  small  sparks  here  begett  differences  at  home  betwixt 
our  so  amiable  soveraines.’  Apparently  this  belligerent  re¬ 
joinder  from  the  Quaker  governor  closed  the  debate.  The 
traders,  at  all  events,  were  not  withdrawn  from  the  Lower 
Creeks. 

In  the  later  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  indeed,  the 
Carolinians  were  penetrating  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  mystery 
of  the  West.  Beyond  the  Appalachians,  in  the  valleys  of  the 
Tennessee  and  the  lower  Mississippi  and  on  the  broad  plains  of 
the  Gulf,  they  were  pioneers  of  English  enterprise,  matching  in 
audacity  the  Canadian  coureurs  de  hois.  In  western  exploration 
they  had  as  yet  no  real  rivals  among  the  English  of  Virginia 
or  the  North,  save  for  isolated  adventurers  whose  wanderings 
had  no  significant  sequel.  To  be  sure  the  Spaniards,  De  Soto, 
Pardo,  Boyano,  De  Luna,  and  Villafane,  had  long  preceded 
them,  but  Spanish  dominion,  despite  inflated  claims,  had  never 
really  been  maintained  beyond  the  coastal  mission  provinces. 
La  Salle,  too,  had  dreamed,  and  struggled,  and  miserably 
perished.  But  till  Ponchartrain  and  Iberville  revived  La  Salle’s 
great  project,  Tonti’s  establishment  in  the  Illinois  country,  and 
for  a  short  time  his  Arkansas  seigniory,  marked  the  effective 
limits  of  the  French  southward  advance.  When,  at  the  century’s 
close,  Frenchmen  returned  to  the  Mississippi  under  Iberville, 
and  the  missionary  priests  drifted  down  the  great  river,  every¬ 
where  they  found  disturbing  evidences  of  the  presence  of  the 
Charles  Town  traders.  Two  main  routes  to  the  West  were 
followed  by  these  forgotten  English  explorers.  One  led  north¬ 
westward  into  the  mountain  country  of  the  Cherokee,  where 
the  head  streams  of  the  Savannah  interlace  with  the  ‘western 
waters’  of  the  Tennessee  system.  The  other  consisted  of  the 
overland  paths  from  Ochese  Creek  to  the  Coosa  and  Talapoosa, 
and  thence  to  the  land  of  the  Chickasaws  and  to  their  neigh¬ 
bors  along  the  Mississippi.  Few  traces  were  left  by  the  traders 
of  their  activities,  save  the  trails  which  their  successors  fol¬ 
lowed  through  many  decades.  Only  now  and  then  did  they 
emerge  briefly  into  the  light  of  history,  much  as  when  their 


40 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


caravans  chanced  to  pass  from  the  gloom  of  the  vast  southern 
pine  forests  into  some  sunny  upland  savannah. 

Traders  from  Virginia  continued  to  follow  the  Occaneechi 
path  as  far  as  the  Carolina  piedmont.  But  after  the  period  of 
Col.  Abraham  Wood  there  is  no  clear  evidence  for  many  years 
that  they  traded  with  the  mountain  tribes.  Certainly  they  had 
no  part  in  the  great  expansion  of  English  trade  westward  from 
the  mountains  to  the  Mississippi.69  The  beginnings  of  Charles 
Town’s  contacts  with  the  Cherokee  are  also  obscure.  In  1681  a 
permit  was  issued  for  the  exportation  of  several  ‘Seraquii’ 
slaves,  probably  Cherokee  captured  by  the  Savannah  Indians.70 
An  important  manuscript  map  of  South  Carolina,  prepared 
about  1685  from  official  data,  showed  a  path  running  up  the 
right  bank  of  the  Savannah  River  from  ‘the  Oldfort,’  opposite 
‘Savana  town  and  fort,’  nearly  as  far  as  the  forks.71  Thus 
early,  perhaps,  this  river  route  had  been  followed  to  the  Chero¬ 
kee  towns.  Certainly  by  1690  the  Cherokee  trade  had  begun; 
this  was  clearly  indicated  in  Sothell’s  restrictive  act  of  the  fol¬ 
lowing  year.72  A  pioneer  in  exploiting  the  Cherokee  trade  was 
the  ambitious  and  impecunious  planter,  James  Moore,  who  was 
to  play  so  great  a  role  in  the  creation  of  the  southern  frontier 
and  of  provincial  western  policy.  ‘He  is  a  generous  man  and 
lives  well,’  was  the  character  given  him  by  the  Proprietors  to 
palliate  his  neglect  to  pay  quit-rents.73  With  Maurice  Mathews 
he  engaged  in  slave-trading  and  other  speculative  money¬ 
making  schemes,  including  a  project  to  exploit  the  trade  and 
the  mines  of  the  southern  Appalachians.  In  1690  Moore  made  a 
journey  ‘over  the  Apalathean  Mountains,’  ‘as  well  out  of 
curiosity  to  see  what  sort  of  Country  we  might  have  in  Land 
as  to  find  out  and  make  new  and  further  discovery  of  Indian 
Trade.’  But  Moore  wrote  that  he  was  prevented  from  penetra¬ 
ting  ‘to  the  place  which  I  had  gon  to  see’  by  ‘a  difference  about 

69  V.  W.  Crane,  ‘The  Tennessee  River  as  the  Road  to  Carolina,’  in 
MVHR,  III.  9  f.,  and  notes  22,  23,  26. 

10 Court  of  Ordinary  Records,  1672-1692  (MSS,  Columbia,  S.  C.),  under 
date  October  15,  1681. 

71  Joel  Gascoyne,  Plat,  B.M.  Add.  MSS  5414,  roll  24. 

79  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II,  64. 

73  C.O.  5  :288,  p.  228. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


41 


Trade  .  .  .  between  those  Indians  and  me.’74  In  a  letter  of 
May,  1691,  the  Proprietors  expressed  alarm  that  ‘without  any 
war  first  proclaimed,’  certain  Carolinians  had  ‘fallen  upon  the 
Cherokee  Indians  in  a  hostile  manner  and  murdered  several  of 
them.’75  No  doubt  they  had  heard  from  Moore’s  enemies,  who 
were  disturbed  by  Mathews’s  secret  mission  to  England  to  pro¬ 
cure  an  assay  of  several  specimens  of  ore  from  the  mountains. 
In  April,  1692,  Moore  was  forbidden  by  the  council  to  leave 
the  settlement  to  trade  with  any  remote  Indians  except  by  per¬ 
mission  of  governor  and  council,  and  ordered  to  deliver  all 
papers  relating  to  Mathews’s  English  journey.76  For  a  number 
of  years,  apparently,  such  trade  as  developed  in  this  mountain 
area  was  intermittent;  and  the  Cherokee  long  occupied  a  sub¬ 
ordinate  position  in  the  Carolina  Indian  system.  Thus  in  1693 
the  Commons  House  refused  to  sanction  the  punishment  of 
the  Savannah  for  a  raid  against  the  mountaineers.77  Indeed, 
as  late  as  1708  the  Cherokee  were  officially  described  as  ‘a 
Numerous  People  but  very  Lasey,’  and  their  trade  as  incon¬ 
siderable  in  comparison  with  the  flourishing  southern  and 
western  trade,  ‘they  being  but  ordinary  hunters  and  less  War- 
riours.’78  However,  as  competition  developed  with  the  French  in 
the  West,  the  strategic  location  of  the  Cherokee  gave  them 
increasing  importance. 

Vague  rumors,  no  doubt  exaggerated,  of  English  penetra¬ 
tion  into  the  Cherokee  country  and  even  as  far  as  the  Tennes¬ 
see  valley  were  current  among  the  French  as  early  as  the  epoch 
of  La  Salle’s  explorations.  But  by  reason  of  the  Iroquois  hege¬ 
mony  south  of  the  Great  Lakes,  the  French,  apparently,  had 
no  first-hand  knowledge,  even  at  the  end  of  that  period,  of  the 
great  central  region  of  the  Ohio  and  its  southern  affluents. 
Such  information  as  they  possessed  probably  came  from  the 
Indians,  principally  from  the  Shawnee,  who  were  rapidly  dis¬ 
integrating  under  the  assaults  of  the  Iroquois.  The  maps  which 

74  James  Moore  to  Edward  Randolph,  circa  1699,  in  C.O.  5:1258,  C  19; 
ibid.,  C  20  (Moore  to  Cutler,  April  3,  1699),  gave  the  date  1691,  but  the 
earlier  date  seems  to  be  confirmed  by  the  Proprietors’  letter  of  May  13, 
1691,  in  C.O.  5:288,  p.  176. 

7;  Ibid. 

70  Journal  of  the  Grand  Council  of  South  Carolina  (hereinafter  cited  as 
JGC),  April  14,  1692;  see  also  entry  of  May  28,  1692. 

77  JCHA,  January  14,  1692/3. 

78  C.O.  5:1264,  P  82. 


42 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


purported  to  record  the  results  of  Marquette’s  and  Joliet’s  ex¬ 
plorations,  though  exceedingly  vague  in  depicting  this  section, 
showed  the  approximate  position  of  the  ‘Kaskinonka’  Indians, 
from  whom  the  Tennessee  River  took  its  early  name.  In  the 
great  manuscript  map  by  Franquelin  recording  La  Salle’s  dis¬ 
coveries,  the  ‘Casquinampogamou’  appeared  as  the  most  im¬ 
portant  tributary  of  the  Ohio,  and  the  location  of  the  Cherokee 
on  its  upper  waters  was  clearly  indicated.  From  ‘les  Kaski- 
nampo,’  on  an  island  in  the  mid-course  of  the  river,  Franquelin 
showed  a  path  leading  to  Florida  by  which  these  and  other 
Indians  ‘vont  traiter  aux  Espagnols.’  Such  was  the  extent  of 
French  information  of  the  Tennessee  when  La  Salle’s  labors 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley  were  completed,  and  for  a  decade  and 
a  half  thereafter.  Already  the  importance  of  the  Tennessee  as 
a  route  from  the  English  frontier  had  been  recognised,  and 
also  the  necessity  for  its  control  by  the  French.  La  Salle  him¬ 
self  had  feared  that  the  English  would  come  from  Carolina  by 
a  river  which  took  its  rise  near  the  boundaries  of  that  province, 
and  would  draw  off  thither  a  large  part  of  the  French  trade. 
Tonti,  whose  trading  privileges  in  the  Illinois  country  gave 
him  exceptional  opportunities  for  observing  the  English  ad¬ 
vance  on  the  southern  frontier,  urged  in  1694  the  danger  to 
the  western  trade  as  a  reason  for  the  completion  of  La  Salle’s 
enterprise.  Had  he  learned,  perhaps,  from  the  Indians  of  the 
exploits  of  James  Moore  when  he  asserted  that  Carolinians 
were  even  then  established  upon  one  of  the  branches  of  the 
Ohio?79 

The  earliest  actual  contact  between  the  French  and  English 
trading  frontiers  in  the  South  appears  to  have  been  made  by 
one  of  Tonti’s  men,  but  a  renegade  from  his  service.  This  ob¬ 
scure  explorer,  perhaps  the  first  white  man  to  follow  the 
Tennessee  to  its  sources  in  the  Cherokee  country,  was  a  cer¬ 
tain  Jean  Couture.  A  carpenter,  born  in  Rouen,  he  was  known 
to  La  Salle  in  1684  as  a  coureur  de  bois  of  Canada;  he  was  an 
acquaintance,  also,  of  Hennepin.  Two  years  later  he  followed 
Tonti  down  the  Mississippi  in  the  unsuccessful  attempt  to  join 
La  Salle.  On  the  return  he  was  one  of  those  left  at  Tonti’s 

™  MVHR,  III.  3-5.  In  the  W.  L.  Clements  Library,  Ann  Arbor,  Michi¬ 
gan,  is  a  photostatic  reproduction  of  the  Franquelin  map,  1688,  from  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale  MS  4040  B,  6  bis. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


43 


seigniory  at  the  mouth  of  the  Arkansas  to  build  a  stockaded 
post  which  Tonti  intended  to  make  serve  as  an  intermediate 
station  between  the  Illinois  and  La  Salle’s  colony,  to  maintain 
the  alliance  of  the  Arkansas  tribes  and  to  protect  them  against 
the  Iroquois.  As  commandant,  Couture  remained  to  hold  this 
farthest  outpost  of  New  France  in  the  Mississippi  valley  when, 
in  1687,  the  survivors  of  La  Salle’s  disaster  wandered  thither. 
It  was  from  Couture,  on  his  return  to  Fort  St.  Louis  in  April, 
1688,  that  Tonti  first  learned  of  the  death  of  his  great  leader. 
Couture  was  at  once  despatched  to  the  southwest  to  seek  the 
ill-fated  colony,  but  a  hundred  leagues  from  the  fort  he  was 
shipwrecked,  and  turned  back  without  accomplishing  his 
mission.80 

Within  a  few  years,  certainly  before  1696, 81  Couture  de¬ 
serted  from  New  France  and  penetrated  eastward  to  the 
English  frontier  colony  of  Carolina.  There,  at  the  end  of  the 
century,  he  was  known  as  ‘the  Greatest  Trader  and  Traveller 
amongst  the  Indians  for  more  than  Twenty  years,’  and  the 
master  of  eight  or  nine  native  languages.  His  route  to  Carolina 
was  probably  the  Tennessee,  with  which  on  a  later  occasion  he 
demonstrated  his  familiarity.  His  defection,  of  course,  was  not 
unique,  for  the  severe  penalties  imposed  by  the  French  on  un¬ 
licensed  trading  prompted  numbers  of  lawless  courenrs  de  hois 
to  carry  their  goods  to  the  English,  or  even  to  desert  to  the 
English  colonies. 

In  South  Carolina,  by  virtue  of  his  familiarity  with  the 
trans-Appalachian  region,  Couture  came  in  contact  with  various 
promoters  of  western  enterprises  characteristic  of  the  southern 
frontier  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century.  These  included 
a  group  of  prospectors  for  silver,  who,  with  the  backing  of 
William  Blathwayt,  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater,  and  others  in¬ 
fluential  in  colonial  management  in  England,  were  seeking 
riches  in  the  bed  of  the  Savannah  River.  Through  various 
misadventures,  and  the  opposition  of  the  Proprietors,  the  origi¬ 
nal  scheme  had  come  to  nought.  But  in  May,  1699,  at  Savannah 

“Couture’s  career  was  first  recounted  in  my  article  in  MV  HR,  III.  3-18. 
The  archival  materials  are  in  C.O.  5:1258,  C  19  (no.  1),  C  20;  C.O.  5:1260, 
F  29,  29  (i),  29  (ii). 

alMVHR,  III.  8,  note  17.  In  Warrants  for  Lands  in  South  Carolina, 
1692-1711,  p.  126,  is  a  warrant  dated  August  1,  1696,  for  200  acres  for  ‘John 
Cuture.’  See  ibid.,  pp.  161,  174. 


44 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Town,  the  prospectors  fell  in  with  Jean  Couture.  He  told  them 
an  essentially  plausible  narrative  of  wanderings  west  of  Caro¬ 
lina  with  three  companions,  ‘through  Several  Nations  of  Indians 
above  a  hundred  Leagues  beyond  the  Appalatean  Mountains,’ 
where  he  believed  ‘that  no  Europeans  had  ever  been  before.’ 
His  accounts  of  a  considerable  quantity  of  gold  which  he  had 
taken  up  ‘not  far  from  the  branch  of  a  Navigable  River,’  and 
of  pearls  given  him  by  a  nation  of  Indians  ‘inhabiting  by  a 
very  Great  Lake,’  were  calculated  to  fire  the  cupidity  of  the 
treasure-hunters.  With  them  he  entered  into  an  agreement, 
under  bond  of  £500,  to  return  and  make  good  his  finds.  Two 
of  the  prospectors  went  to  England,  armed  with  Couture’s 
memorial,  to  get  the  backing  of  the  Board  of  Trade  against 
the  expected  opposition  of  the  Proprietors.  But  the  Board  re¬ 
fused  to  intermeddle,  and  so  nothing  came  of  the  French  rene¬ 
gade’s  proposal  to  exploit,  for  the  benefit  of  the  English,  the 
mineral  resources  of  the  southern  Appalachians.  But  Couture 
was  yet  to  play  a  large  part  in  another  and  more  significant 
project  for  English  westward  expansion.  Already  he  had 
aroused  the  fears  of  Governor  Francis  Nicholson  of  Maryland 
regarding  French  activities  in  the  West.  And  in  1700  it  was 
Jean  Couture  whom  Joseph  Blake  engaged  to  guide  a  party 
of  traders  by  way  of  the  Tennessee  to  the  Mississippi,  to 
claim  the  great  river  for  Britain  and  to  divert  its  trade  to 
Carolina. 

Northwestward  the  mountains  raised  a  barrier,  partly  ef¬ 
fective,  to  exploration.  Southwestward  a  more  rapid  advance 
was  possible  through  foot-hills  and  plains  inhabitated  by 
numerous  and  hospitable  tribes,  readily  assimilated  to  the 
English  trading  regime. 

Of  Savannah  Town,  the  focus  of  all  the  trails  to  the  West, 
and  the  entrepot  of  the  whole  inland  trade,  little  is  known  at 
this  period.  An  early  map  showed  the  path  from  Charles  Town 
running  by  way  of  Goose  Creek  and  the  plantations  of  Percival 
and  Shaftesbury  to  the  ford  of  the  Edisto  or  Colleton  Rivet 
at  the  great  bend,  and  thence  westward  to  the  Indian  town  and 
the  adjacent  traders’  fort.  On  the  opposite  bank  appeared  the 
location  of  ‘the  Oldfort,’  apparently  another  palisaded  ware¬ 
house.82  As  early  as  1691  the  Proprietors  recognized  the  im- 
83  B.M.  Add.  MSS  5414,  roll  24. 


CAROLINIAN  EXPANSION 


45 


portance  of  the  place  when  they  instructed  Ludwell  ‘to  Incour¬ 
age  all  people  that  will  to  reside  at  the  Sevanah  towne  or  any 
other  place  among  the  Indians,  that  the  Inland  parts  of  our 
province  and  the  strength  of  the  severall  Nations  of  the  Indians 
may  be  fully  knowne.’83 

The  reports  of  Spanish  governors  and  officers,  which  had 
revealed  so  clearly  the  English  intrusions  into  Guale  and 
Apalachicola,  gave  meagre  indications  of  their  progress  fur¬ 
ther  westward,  beyond  the  Chattahoochee.  When  Torres,  in 
1693,  sent  an  expedition  to  reconnoitre  the  Gulf  coast,  a  Span¬ 
ish  vessel  which  put  in  at  Mobile  Bay  found  no  Indians  there¬ 
abouts;  it  was  reported  that  the  Mobilians  had  retired  inland 
to  trade  with  the  English.84  So  recently  as  1691,  when  Sothell 
secured  a  monopolistic  act  restraining  the  freedom  of  trade 
with  the  distant  Indians,  though  the  Coweta  and  Kasihta  and 
the  Cherokee  Indians  were  mentioned,  and  even  some  of  the 
Tennessee  River  tribes,  nothing  was  said  of  the  Upper  Creeks 
or  their  neighbors.85  Apparently  it  was  around  1692-1696  that 
the  great  push  westward  from  Ochese  Creek  occurred.  In  1708 
Thomas  Nairne  asserted  that  Mobile  was  established  in  1702 
in  despite  of  a  just  English  title,  ‘all  the  Inhabitants  whereof 
had  for  10  years  before  submitted  themselves  and  Country 
to  the  government  of  Carolina,  and  then  actually  Traded  with 
us.’86  Moreover,  Iberville  in  1702  referred  to  the  Choctaw- 
Chickasaw  feud,  provoked  by  English  traders  to  furnish  In¬ 
dian  slaves,  as  then  of  eight  to  ten  years’  standing.87  Certainly 
when  the  French  took  possession  of  the  lower  Mississippi  and 
the  adjacent  coast  of  the  Gulf,  in  1699,  everywhere  they 
found  English  traders  securely  seated  among  the  interior  tribes. 
To  Joseph  Blake,  deputy  governor  in  1694  and  again  from 

11696-1700,  his  friend  John  Archdale  later  ascribed  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  great  western  trading  enterprise  of  the  colony.88 
83  C.O.  5  :288,  p.  195. 

84  Dunn,  Spanish  and  French  Rivalry,  p.  170. 

85  Cooper  (ed. ) ,  Statutes,  II.  64. 

88  C.O.  5:382  (11).  Other  English  claims  were  more  sweeping.  In  1737 
Oglethorpe  assured  Lord  Percival  that  ‘ever  since  the  year  1680’  the  Chicka- 
'  saw  had  taken  commissions  from  the  governor  of  Carolina.  (Percival, 
If Diary,  II.  326). 

87  Decouvertes  et  etablissements  des  Frangais  dans  I’ouest  et  dans  le  sud 
ie  I’Amerique  septentrionale,  edited  by  Pierre  Margry,  IV.  517. 

“Archdale,  Description,  p.  31,  reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed.),  Collections, 
[I.  119. 


/ 


i 


i 


46 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Some  years  before  the  century’s  close  the  bolder  traders  had 
established  their  factories  among  the  Alabama,  Talapoosa,  and 
Abihka,  near  the  forks  of  the  Alabama,  and  had  laid  in  train 
that  alliance  with  the  Chickasaw,  which,  more  than  any  other 
single  factor,  was  destined  to  thwart  the  complete  attainment 
of  the  French  design  in  the  lower  Mississippi  valley.  From 
the  villages  of  the  populous  Choctaw,  near  the  Tombigbee,  and 
of  the  Acolapissa,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Pearl,  to  the  country  of 
the  Arkansas,  west  of  the  great  river,  and  even  as  far  as  the 
Illinois,  the  Chickasaw,  now  that  they  were  supplied  with  arms 
by  the  English,  became  the  scourge  of  the  defenseless  western 
tribes.89 

Foremost  among  the  Chickasaw  traders  were  Thomas 
Welch  and  Anthony  Dodsworth.  The  most  notable  exploit  in 
the  early  history  of  Carolinian  trade  and  exploration  was  the 
journey  of  Welch,  in  1698,  from  Charles  Town  to  the  Quapaw 
village  at  the  mouth  of  the  Arkansas  River.90  Within  three 
decades  from  the  planting  of  the  colony  the  Carolinians  had 
reached  and  even  passed  the  Mississippi. 

89  V.  W.  Crane,  ‘The  Southern  Frontier  in  Queen  Anne’s  War,’  in  AHR, 
XXIV.  382.  In  an  extraordinary  memorial  to  Queen  Anne  in  1711  John 
Stewart  of  Port  Royal  claimed  to  have  been  ‘the  first  discoverer’  of  the 
Upper  Creek  trade.  Paris,  Archives  Nationales,  colonies,  C13  C,  2:76. 

"CO.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Mississippi  Question,  1697-1702 

The  exploits  of  Thomas  Welch  and  his  fellow  traders  might 
have  passed  unnoted  outside  of  Carolina,  but  for  developments 
in  the  larger  world  which  gave  to  Carolinian  expansion  a  special 
significance  in  the  unfolding  of  the  Anglo-French  conflict  for 
the  North  American  continent. 

In  1697  came  the  Peace  of  Ryswick  and  a  short  breathing 
space  in  the  wars  of  Louis  XIV.  Although  the  Grand  Monarch 
himself  was  chiefly  concerned  with  European  issues,  his  minis¬ 
ters,  and  especially  Ponchartrain,  minister  of  marine,  gave 
thought  once  more  to  America  and  the  completion  of  La  Salle’s 
great  plan,  stirred  to  action  by  reports  of  English  projects  and 
enterprises  in  the  West.  Since  1690,  when  La  Salle’s  brother, 
the  abbe  Jean  Cavelier,  had  urged  new  efforts,1  advocates  of 
French  expansion  had  showered  alarmist  memoirs  upon  the  min¬ 
istry.  La  Salle  had  stressed  the  value  of  a  colony  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi  as  a  curb  to  Spain,  and  as  a  point  of  attack 
upon  the  Spanish  mine-country.2  But  in  these  later  memorials, 
significantly,  it  was  English  encroachment  that  was  pictured, 
no  doubt  with  exaggeration,  but  also  with  prophetic  insight, 
as  the  great  peril.  ‘If  the  English,’  declared  Cavelier,  ‘once 
render  themselves  masters  of  the  Colbert  [Mississippi],  for 
which  they  are  working  with  all  of  their  power  .  .  .  they  will 
also  gain  the  Illinois,  the  Ottawa,  and  all  the  nations  with 
whom  the  French  of  New  France  carry  on  trade.’  In  1693 
Tonti  gave  warning  of  the  progress  of  the  Carolinians.3  The 
Canadians,  Louvigny  and  Mantet,  urging  the  continuation  of 
La  Salle’s  project,  referred  -to  English  efforts  among  the  Iro¬ 
quois  and  the  menace  of  Albany  to  the  western  trade.4  In 
his  notable  memoir,  Sieur  Argoud  recounted  a  rumor  that 
j;  Penn  had  sent  explorers  to  the  Ohio,  and  said  that  in  the  South, 

1  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  III,  586  ff.  See  also  on  the  subject  of  this 
paragraph  C.  W.  Alvord,  The  Illinois  Country,  1673-1818,  1920,  pp.  124-7; 
and  Margry  (ed.) ,  Decouvertes,  IV,  Introduction. 

2  Pierre  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane  sous  la  Compagnie  des  Indes,  1717-1731, 
Paris,  [1908  ?],  pp.  xxiv,  xxviii. 

3  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  3-5. 

4  Ibid.,  pp.  9-18. 


[47] 


48 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


also,  the  English  were  seeking  to  make  themselves  masters  of 
the  Mississippi.  Backed  by  Argoud  in  France,  Remonville’s 
proposals  of  1697  for  a  colony  on  the  Mississippi  made  a 
strong  impression  of  which  echoes  were  soon  borne  to  Eng¬ 
land.5  But  royal  effort,  rather  than  a  chartered  company,  was 
the  means  at  length  approved  by  the  King.  Already  Louis  XIV 
in  his  instructions  to  the  commissioners  at  Ryswick  had  charged 
them  not  to  discuss  the  title  to  the  Mississippi,  announcing  that 
shortly  he  intended  to  send  vessels  thither  to  assure  possession 
for  France.6  It  was  news  from  England,  finally,  of  the  rival 
project  of  Coxe — following  all  these  reports  from  America 
of  trading  aggressions — that  hastened  the  despatch  of  Iber¬ 
ville  in  1698  on  his  first  voyage  of  reconnaissance.  Biloxi  was 
the  result :  a  temporary  settlement,  but  soon  transformed  into 
the  colony  of  Louisiana  when  Louis  XIV  became  convinced 
of  the  reality  of  the  English  peril  and  of  the  French  oppor¬ 
tunity  in  the  West. 

Daniel  Coxe,  projector  of  Carolana,  was  an  English  doctor  of 
medicine  of  some  distinction,  a  court  physician  under  Charles  II 
and  Queen  Anne,  and  a  fellow  of  the  Royal  Society.  His  pioneer 
experiments  to  determine  the  effect  of  nicotine  upon  animals 
and  his  chemical  contributions  to  the  Philosophical  Transactions 
are  quite  forgotten,7  but  the  pamphlet  compiled  by  his  son  from 


5  Ibid.,  pp.  21-34.  Circumstantial  accounts  of  the  preparations  of  the 
French  Louisiana  company  were  printed  in  London  newspapers  and  peri¬ 
odicals  in  January,  1698,  and  were  probably  known  to  the  English  promoter, 
Coxe.  The  Post  Man,  January  8-11,  reported  that  M.  de  Beaujeau,  who 
had  ‘carried  thither  some  years  ago  Monsieur  de  Salle,’  had  been  chosen  to 
command  the  squadron.  The  Post  Boy  of  January  15-18,  and  also  the  Pres¬ 
ent  State  of  Europe,  IX,  no.  1  (January,  1698),  pp.  48  f.,  recounted  that 
300,000  livres  would  be  raised ;  and  that  the  King  granted  the  propriety  of 
the  country,  a  fleet  to  transport  the  colony,  and  eight  companies  of  foot.  In 
February,  however,  the  project  was  said  to  have  vanished  ( Post  Boy,  Febru¬ 
ary  8-10).  We  prefer,  remarked  the  writer  of  a  Paris  news-letter,  that  the 
English  should  be  fooled  by  the  fables  of  the  late  Sieur  de  la  Salle  and  the 
monk  Hennepin!  (P.R.O.,  S.P.  101:23.  Paris,  10  Fevrier,  1698).  But  again 
in  May  London  was  told  that  Louis  XIV  had  approved  ‘the  new  Company, 
who  intend  to  errect  a  Colony  on  both  sides  the  River  Mechisippy’  ( Post  Boy, 
May  28-31,  1698).  See  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  62. 

6  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV,  Introduction,  iv. 

7  G.  D.  Scull,  ‘Biographical  Notice  of  Dr.  Daniel  Coxe,  of  London,’  in 
Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History  and  Biography,  VII.  317-37 ;  Phil¬ 
osophical  Transactions,  IX.  4,  150,  169;  B.M.  Add.  MSS  6194,  f.  39.  For  a 
somewhat  too  favorable  view  of  Coxe’s  credibility  as  an  historian  of  the 
early  western  movement,  see  F.  E.  Melvin,  ‘Dr.  Daniel  Coxe  and  Carolana,’ 
in  MVHR,  I.  257-62. 


49 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 

his  Carolana  memorials  remains  one  of  the  curiosities  of  the 
literature  of  colonial  promotion.  For  a  scientist  Coxe  was 
strangely  credulous.  ‘I  believe  he  is  an  honest  gentleman  and  a 
very  good  doctor,’  declared  Francis  Nicholson,  ‘but  I  am  afraid 
several  people  have  abused  the  Doctor’s  good  nature  and  gen¬ 
erosity  by  telling  him  of  Strange  Countries  and  giving  him 
Mapps  thereof.’8 

Before  Coxe  developed  his  grand  project  of  a  vast  western 
empire  he  had  been  concerned  in  a  variety  of  typical  colonial 
enterprises,  none  very  successful,  for  fishing,  commerce,  min¬ 
ing,  the  production  of  naval  stores,  and  for  trade  with  the 
Indians.  These  ventures  had  centered  chiefly  in  the  Jersies, 
where  the  Doctor  had  become  a  great  proprietor.9  Indeed,  from 
1687  to  1692  he  was  in  sole  possession  of  the  government  of 
West  Jersey.  An  inventory  of  his  American  estates10  drawn 
up  circa  1688  included  a  description  of  his  Minnisink  Province. 
It  was  apparently  possession  of  this  tract  of  three  or  four 
hundred  thousand  acres  overlooking  the  Delaware  which  first 
stirred  Coxe’s  interest  in  the  West.  Minnisink,  he  declared,  was 
admirably  situated  for  trade  with  the  distant  Indians,  ‘the  upper 
part  being  within  six  dayes  easy  Journey  of  the  greate  Lake 
whence  most  of  the  furres  are  carryed  to  Canada  and  brought 
to  New  York,  Jersey,  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland.  I  have 
been  att  great  Expence,’  he  boasted,  ‘to  make  friendshipp  with 
the  Indians,  discover  the  passages  to  the  Lakes  and  open’d  a 
way  for  a  vast  trade  thereunto.’  Though  the  elder  Coxe  never 
saw  America,  in  imagination  he  stood  tiptoe  upon  his  Jersey 
hills  and  strained  his  eyes  westward.  From  this  period  he  col¬ 
lected  all  the  accounts,  maps,  and  traditions  that  he  could  meet 
with  of  travels  into  the  trans-Appalachian  region.  As  early  as 
1687  he  was  in  possession  of  a  copy  of  the  Fallam  journal.11 
Did  Coxe,  through  his  agents  in  West  Jersey,  actually  emulate 
those  Virginian  pioneers  whose  deeds  he  so  often  recalled  ?  His 
own  unsubstantiated  claims  as  a  promoter  of  western  explora- 

8C.O.  5:1312,  E  16;  CSP.AWI,  1700,  p.  497. 

8  C.  M.  Andrews,  Colonial  Self-Government,  pp.  123  f.  See  Rawlinson 
MSS  C  379. 

10  Pa.  Mag.  of  Hist,  and  Biog.,  VII.  331. 

u  Alvord  and  Bidgood,  First  Explorations,  p.  183  note.  In  April,  1693, 
Coxe  wrote  to  Sir  Hans  Sloane  to  borrow  the  seventh  and  eighth  Decades 
of  Herrera  (B.  M.  Sloane  MSS  4036,  f.  147). 


50 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


tion  were  made  when  he  was  seeking  to  sell  his  Jersey  holdings, 
or  later  when  he  was  asking  royal  support  for  his  Carolana 
enterprise.  In  one  memorial  he  gave  a  circumstantial  account  of 
a  journey  of  three  of  his  tenants  by  way  of  the  Schuylkill, 
Susquehanna,  and  Ohio  rivers  to  the  Mississippi  and  beyond. 
At  just  this  period,  it  is  true,  the  Albanians,  spurred  by  the 
aggressive  Dongan,  were  challenging  the  French  upon  the 
Great  Lakes.12  Arnout  Viele,  who  returned  to  Albany  in  the 
summer  of  1694  from  a  two  years’  exploration  as  far  as  the 
Wabash,  had  followed  in  the  main  the  route  described  by  Coxe, 
and  had  made  Minnisink  his  base. 

Before  Coxe  other  Englishmen,  colonial  officials  and  pro¬ 
vincials,  had  envisaged  a  West  controlled  by  England  in  the 
interest  of  the  fur  trade,  and  eventually,  perhaps,  of  English 
colonization.  But  in  England  Coxe  was  the  first  to  give  cur¬ 
rency  to  this  program.  By  his  propaganda  he  helped  to  spread 
a  momentous  idea :  that  the  destiny  of  the  English  in  America 
embraced  more  than  the  settlement  and  exploitation  of  the 
Atlantic  seaboard. 

In  1690,  Dr.  Coxe,  still  a  member  of  the  West  Jersey  So¬ 
ciety,  petitioned  the  King  for  a  grant  of  an  enormous  area 
between  36°  30"  and  46°  30',  stretching  westward  from  Vir¬ 
ginia.  Pennsylvania,  and  New  York  to  the  South  Sea.13  His 
schemes  of  inland  trade  were  taking  shape.  But  the  Lords  of 
Trade  declined  to  help  him  to  a  monopoly  of  the  furs  of  the 
West.  Not  long  after,  he  acquired  possession  of  the  old  patent 
granted  by  Charles  I  in  1629  to  Sir  Robert  Heath,  and  of  a 
later  grant  to  Lord  Maltravers.14  Thus  he  secured  some  sort  of 
title  to  an  even  vaster  western  estate :  to  Norfolk  county  in 
Virginia,  and  by  the  Heath  patent  to  the  province  of  Carolana 
which  ran  from  sea  to  sea  between  the  parallels  of  31°  and  36° 

12  Helen  Broshar,  ‘The  First  Push  Westward  of  the  Albany  Traders,’  in 
MV  HR,  VII.  228-41:  C.  A.  Hanna,  The  Wilderness  Trail,  1911,  I.  137-43. 

“C.O.  5:855,  no.  87;  1081,  no.  160A.  CSP,AWI,  1689-1692.  pp.  251,  761. 
In  the  Privy  Council’s  reference  of  Coxe’s  petition  to  the  Lords  of  the 
Committee  there  was  a  recognition  that  this  ‘Country  being  possessed  by 
the  English,  the  Commerce  of  the  French  with  the  Indians  will  be  wholy 
destroyd.’ 

14  Scull  says  (doc.  cit.,  p.  318)  between  1692  and  1698.  See  above,  note 
11,  and  evidence  below  that  Coxe  had  matured  his  plan  by  1697.  On  the 
intermediate  history  of  the  Heath  patent  see  H.  L.  Osgood,  The  American 
Colonies  in  the  Seventeenth  Century,  II.  200  f. 


51 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 

Soon  Coxe  was  deep  in  the  business  of  colonial  promotion.  To 
be  sure,  subsequent  charters  to  the  Carolina  proprietors  had 
ignored  the  Carolana  grant.  Carolana,  moreover,  embraced  a 
large  part  of  Florida,  and  of  the  great  central  valley  which  La 
Salle  had  named  in  honor  of  Louis  XIV.  What  countenance 
might  Coxe  expect  from  the  Lords  Proprietors?  from  the  mer¬ 
cantilists  of  the  Board  of  Trade?  What  sufferance  from 
Madrid  or  Paris?  Where  would  he  find  colonists  to  hold  so 
precarious  a  frontier  for  England? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  Coxe  launched  his  Carolana 
scheme  there  were  several  circumstances  to  encourage  so  san¬ 
guine  a  promoter.  With  the  peace  America  might,  and  did 
briefly,  engage  the  attention  of  the  Crown.  From  the  Continent, 
from  an  old  companion  of  La  Salle,  came  a  spectacular  appeal 
to  William  III  to  take  possession  for  the  English  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  valley,  which  Coxe  knew  how  to  turn  to  his  own  uses. 
In  1683  Father  Hennepin’s  Description  de  la  Louisiane,  dedi¬ 
cated  to  Louis  XIV,  had  helped  to  make  La  Salle  famous.15 
But  the  imaginative  Recollet  had  quarrelled  with  his  leader ;  he 
was  now  an  exile  from  France  in  the  Low  Countries.  In  1697  he 
launched  his  notorious  revision,  the  Nouvelle  decouverte,  with 
its  impossible  claim  that  two  years  before  La  Salle  the  author 
had  descended  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  as  well  as  ex¬ 
plored  its  upper  waters — all  in  forty-eight  days  !16  Was  it  only 

15  See  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV,  Introduction,  ix;  and  Alvord, 
Illinois  Country,  p.  92. 

16  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV,  Introduction,  xiv;  R.  G.  Thwaites, 
introduction  to  his  edition  of  Hennepin,  A  New  Discovery,  1903,  I.  xxxiv- 
xxxvi.  In  defense  of  Hennepin  see  J.  G.  Shea,  introduction  to  his  edition 
of  Hennepin,  A  Description  of  Louisiana,  1880,  pp.  31-53.  Shea  threw  the 
blame  for  the  plagiarisms  and  impossible  claims  in  Hennepin’s  later  writings 
upon  a  suppositious  ‘ignorant,’  or  ‘careless,  irresponsible  editor’ ;  and  he 
suggested  that  the  contemporaneous  English  project  furnished  a  journalistic 
motive,  ‘to  make  the  volume  bear  directly  on  a  question  of  the  day,’  that  is, 
the  Mississippi  question.  He  did  not,  however,  intimate  a  definite  political 
motive.  The  typographical  evidence  in  support  of  his  view  has  been  dis¬ 
credited  by  Paltsits ;  and  other  facts  here  presented  make  it  almost  certain 
that  Hennepin  personally  supervised  the  Utrecht  publications  of  1697.  P. 
Jerome  Goyens,  in  his  article  in  Archivum  Franciscanum  historicum,  XVIII 
(1925),  attempted  a  complete  rehabilitation  of  Hennepin;  but  he  quoted 
from  Froidevaux  the  French  archival  evidence  which  goes  far  to  stamp 
Hennepin  a  tool  of  the  English.  It  was  long  since  established  by  Sparks  and 
Parkman  that  Hennepin  freely  pilfered  Membre’s  journal  in  Le  Clercq’s 
suppressed  work.  See  Parkman,  La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  the  Great 
West,  Boston,  1897,  pp.  246  f.  and  note.  In  this  connection  it  is  of  interest 
that  a  contemporary  reviewer  of  the  Nouvelle  decouverte  hinted  at  its  de- 


52 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


vanity  that  led  Hennepin  to  make  this  scandalous  attack  upon 
the  glory  of  La  Salle,  whose  work  others  in  France  were  now 
planning  to  crown  by  a  colony  on  the  Mississippi?  Was  there, 
perhaps,  another  reason,  of  policy?  At  this  stage  in  Hennepin’s 
career  his  acknowledged  patron  was  William  Blathwayt,  long 
secretary  of  the  Privy  Council,  reputed  colonial  expert,  and 
now  a  member  of  the  newly  created  Board  of  Trade  and  Plan¬ 
tations.  It  was  Blathwayt’s  intercession,  at  the  King’s  direction, 
declared  Hennepin,  that  had  secured  for  him  from  the  general- 
commissary  of  his  order  leave  to  go  again  as  a  missionary  to 
America,  and  meanwhile  leisure  to  reside  in  the  United  Prov¬ 
inces  and  digest  his  later  memoirs ;  it  was  Blathwayt  who  had 
provided  generously  for  his  subsistence,  and  who  had  presented 
him  to  the  King.  His  new  writings  he  dedicated  to  William  III, 
voicing  the  hope  that  they  would  prove  of  advantage  ‘especially 
to  the  English  Nation,  to  whose  Service  I  entirely  devote  my 
self.’17  It  is  not  inconceivable  that  the  whole  notorious  attack 
upon  the  fame  of  La  Salle,  and  hence  upon  the  current  French 
Mississippi  projects,  was  engineered  by  William  Blathwayt. 

In  any  case  Hennepin’s  writings  had  the  effect  of  stirring 
English  interest  in  new  colonization,  as  the  French  discovered 
to  their  chagrin.18  The  Nouvelle  decouverte  and  its  continu¬ 
ation,  issued  a  few  weeks  later,  passed  through  many  editions 
and  translations;19  the  first  of  these  was  promptly  published  in 

pendence  upon  Le  Clercq :  ‘Caeterum  obiter  maneo,  cum  historia  Dectectonis 
hujus  non  inutiliter  conferri  posse  Relationem,  quern  Pater  Christianus 
Clericus,  itidem  Missionarius  Recollector,  A.  1691.  Paris,  in  12.  2  vol.  edidit 
.  .  .  ;  Premier  establissement  de  la  foi  ’  ( Bibliotheca  librorutn  novorum, 
Utrecht,  1, 94-97,  April-May,  1697). 

17  Hennepin,  A  New  Discovery,  London,  1698  [1697],  Preface.  Hennepin, 
Nouvelle  decouverte,  Utrecht,  1697,  avis  au  lecteurs. 

18  See  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  20,  for  the  reaction  upon  the 
Remonville  enterprise,  involving  the  withdrawal  of  mercantile  support.  See 
also  correspondence  of  Bonrepaus  and  Ponchartrain,  June  and  July,  1698, 
in  Archives  Nationales,  monuments  historiques,  K.  1349:  IX:  negociations, 
Hollande,  printed  by  Henri  Froidevaux  in  ‘Une  episode  ignore  de  la  vie  du 
P.  Hennepin,'  in  Journal  de  la  Societe  les  Americanistes  de  Paris,  n.s.,  II 
(1905),  281-7. 

19  See  N.  E.  Dionne,  Hennepin,  ses  voyages  et  ses  oeuvres,  Quebec,  1897, 
and  V.  H.  Paltsits,  Bibliography  of  the  Works  of  Father  L.  Hennepin, 
1903.  Both  these  and  all  other  bibliographers  of  Hennepin  seem  to  have 
overlooked  the  important  evidence  furnished  by  book  advertisements  in  con¬ 
temporary  journals  to  establish  the  dates  of  issue.  All  copies  of  the  Nouveau 
voyage  which  have  been  described  bear  the  date  1698.  But  Bibliotheca 
librorum  novorum  in  its  issue  of  June-July,  1697  (I.  265  f.)  named  this  book 
in  its  list  of  ‘Libri  Novi’;  and  published  a  long  summary  in  August-Septem- 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION  53 

London,  probably  by  the  initiative  of  Coxe.  In  July,  1698, 
Bonrepaus  wrote  to  Ponchartrain  from  the  Hague  that  Henne¬ 
pin  had  showed  him  letters  from  England  reciting  Coxe’s 
project  for  an  English  Mississippi  company,  and  asking  for 
memoirs  on  the  subject.20  These  had  already  been  furnished  by 
the  facile  father.  They  were  brought  together  in  A  New  Dis¬ 
covery  of  a  Vast  Country  in  America,  dated  1698,  but  actually 
issued  in  October,  1697. 21  This  fat  little  book  contained  a  trans¬ 
lation  of  the  N ouvelle  decouverte  and  the  Nouveau  voyage. 
There  were  added  Marquette’s  journal  and  an  account  of  the 
death  of  La  Salle  and  at  the  end  an  elaborate  puff  for  the 
Carolana  scheme : 

So  that  the  Providence  of  Almighty  God  seems  to  have  reserv’d 
this  Country  for  the  English,  a  Patent  whereof  was  granted  above 
Fifty  Years  ago  to  the  Lords  Proprietors  of  Carolina  [i.e.,  Caro¬ 
lana],  who  have  made  great  Discoveries,  therein,  seven  hundred 

ber,  1697  (I.  341-9).  The  book  was  described  as  a  duodecimo  of  389  pages, 
published  by  Antoine  Schouten  at  Utrecht.  The  description,  except  for  date, 
fits  one  of  the  1698  issues.  Was  this  post-dated,  or  was  there  an  earlier 
edition  of  which  no  copies  have  survived?  Similar  questions  arise  regarding 
the  English  translation  (see  note  21,  below). 

20  Bonrepaus-Ponchartrain  correspondence,  loc.  cit. 

21  See  E.  Arber  (ed.),  Term  Catalogues,  III.  38,  under  Michaelmas  term, 
1697,  and  the  Post  Man,  September  14-16,  16-18,  and  October  5-7,  1698.  The 
latter  advertised  A  New  Discovery  as  ‘This  Day  .  .  .  published’  by  the  sta¬ 
tioners  Bentley,  Tonson,  Bonwick,  Goodwin,  and  Manship,  who  published  both 
the  so-called  ‘Bon-’  and  ‘Tonson’  editions  known  to  the  bibliographers.  It  seems 
likely  that  this  was  the  ‘Bon-’  edition  from  the  reading  ‘To  which  is  added’ 
in  the  full  title  as  advertised.  The  September  advertisements  reveal  the 
curious  vicissitudes  of  the  translation  before  it  reached  the  public  in  the 
form  that  we  know,  and  may  help  to  explain  the  notorious  typographical 
peculiarities  of  the  ‘Bon-’  edition.  The  September  14-16  issue  of  the  news¬ 
paper  announced  that  ‘A  Continuation  of  the  new  discoveries  in  the  North 
West  parts  of  America,  with  a  description  of  above  200  different  Nations 
and  Reflections  upon  the  Enterprizes  of  M[o]nsieur  de  la  Salle  Governor 
of  Quebec,  upon  the  Mines  of  St.  Barbe,  &c.  as  also  of  the  Advantages  of 
Trading  this  way  to  the  South  Seas,  to  the  Land  of  Jesso,  to  China,  and 
Japan,  with  proposals  for  establishing  new  Colonies,  through  that  vast 
Country.  Dedicated  to  King  William,  by  Louis  Hennepin,  with  a  map  and 
other  Figures.  Translated  into  English.  Will  be  speedily  published  by  Edw. 
Castle  near  Whitehall,  and  Sam.  Buckley  in  Fleet-street.’  This  was,  of 
course,  a  translation  of  the  Nouveau  voyage,  which  makes  most  of  Part  II 
of  A  New  Discovery,  and  possibly  included  the  Carolana  puff.  But  the  pub¬ 
lishers  were  different.  Moreover,  quite  another  group  was  already  engaged 
in  bringing  out  a  translation  of  the  N ouvelle  decouverte.  The  two  enter¬ 
prises  were  now,  it  seems,  combined ;  for  the  next  issue  of  this  newspaper, 
of  September  16-18,  advertised  that  the  continuation  ‘will  be  speedily  pub¬ 
lished.  And  printed  for  Matt.  Gilliflower,  Wm.  Freeman,  Matt.  Wotton,  and 
R.  Parker,  for  whom  the  first  part  is  printed,  and  will  be  published  next 
week.’  Possibly  the  earlier  projects  of  publication  fell  through,  after  the 
translation  of  the  N ouvelle  decouverte  was  already  in  print.  Possibly  both 
parts  were  separately  issued  and  the  sheets  later  acquired  by  Bentley  et  al. 


54 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Miles  Westerly  from  the  Mountains,  which  separate  between  it 
Carolina  and  Virginia,  and  Six  hundred  Miles  from  North  to 
South,  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  great  Inland  Lakes,  which 
are  situated  behind  the  Mountains  of  Carolina  and  Virginia.  Be¬ 
sides,  they  have  an  Account  of  all  the  Coast,  from  the  Cape  of 
Florida  to  the  River  Panuco,  the  Northerly  Bounds  of  the  Span¬ 
iards  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  together  with  most  of  the  chief  Har¬ 
bours,  Rivers  and  Islands  thereunto  appertaining;  and  are  about  to 
establish  a  very  considerable  Colony  on  some  part  of  the  Great 
River,  so  soon  as  they  have  agreed  upon  the  Boundaries,  or  Limits, 
with  the  Lords  Proprietors  of  Carolina,  who  claim  by  a  Patent 
procur’d  long  after  that  of  Carolina  [jfc] .  But  there  being  space 
enough  for  both,  and  the  Proprietors  generally  inclin’d  to  an  amica¬ 
ble  Conclusion,  the  Success  of  this  Undertaking  is  impatiently  ex¬ 
pected  :  For  considering  the  Benignity  of  the  Climate,  the  Health¬ 
fulness  of  the  Country,  Fruitfulness  of  the  Soil,  Ingenuity  and 
Tractableness  of  the  Inhabitants,  Variety  of  Productions,  if  pru¬ 
dently  manag’d,  it  cannot,  humanely  speaking,  fail  of  proving  one 
of  the  most  considerable  Colonies  on  the  North-Continent  of 
America,  profitable  to  the  Publick  and  the  Undertakers. 

Postscript. 

I  am  inform’d  a  large  Map,  or  Draught,  of  this  Country  is  pre¬ 
paring,  together  with  a  very  particular  Account  of  the  Natives, 
their  Customs,  Religion,  Commodities,  and  Materials  for  divers 
sorts  of  Manufactures,  which  are  by  the  English  procur’d  at  great 
Expence  from  other  Countries. 

Coxe,  indefatigable  collector  of  travels,  had  also  secured  in 
Paris  a  copy  of  the  suppressed  memoir,  ascribed  to  Tonti,  the 
Dernieres  decouvertes  (Paris,  1697).  This  also  was  printed  in 
translation  at  London,  in  1698;  and,  according  to  Coxe,  from 
his  own  copy.22 

By  these  publications,  and  also  by  numerous  contemporary 
newspaper  accounts  of  the  French  Mississippi  project,  public  as 
well  as  official  interest  was  directed  towards  America,  and  to¬ 
wards  the  Southwest.  For  colonists  to  settle  Carolana,  Coxe 
turned  to  the  French  Huguenot  refugees  who  were  now  throng¬ 
ing  to  England  and  to  the  Protestant  countries  of  northern 
Europe.  With  two  of  their  leaders,  the  Marquis  de  la  Muce  and 
M.  Charles  de  Sailly,  he  soon  came  to  terms.  To  these  French- 

22  In  a  memorial  of  1719,  printed  in  Alvord  and  Bidgood,  First  Explora¬ 
tions,  p.  234,  Coxe  wrote :  ‘The  book  was  called  in  by  the  French  king,  and 
I  could  not  at  Paris  procure  that  book  under  thirty  Livers,  which  was  at 
first  sold  for  one  Liver,  which  book  was  translated  into  English  1698  from 
my  french  Copy.’  Post  Man,  May  14-17,  1698,  advertised  An  Account  for 
sale. 


55 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 

men,  and  to  Sir  William  Waller,  he  now  transferred  500,000 
acres  on  the  west  side  of  ‘the  River  Spirito  Sancto  [Apalachi¬ 
cola]  which  empties  itself  into  the  Bay  of  Apalache,’  on  a  de¬ 
ferred  quit-rent  tenure,  with  leave  to  take  up  an  equal  amount 
after  seven  years.  The  condition  of  the  conveyance,  dated  May 
2,  1698,  was  that  within  two  years  two  hundred  Protestant 
families  should  be  settled  in  this  first  colony  of  Carolana.  There 
were  soon  issued,  probably  that  same  summer,  printed  Pro¬ 
posals  for  Settling  a  Colony  in  Florida,  ‘whereby  those  who 
shall  think  fit  to  give  a  helping  hand,  shall  not  barely  do  an  act 
of  Charity,  but  [one]  which  shall  turn  to  a  publick  good,  and 
their  own  advantage.’  An  appeal  was  made  for  the  relief  of  the 
‘dispersed  Protestant  Refugees’  in  Holland,  Germany,  etc.,  as 
well  as  in  England,  now  a  heavy  burden  to  the  princes  who  had 
given  them  sanctuary;  from  the  Huguenots  on  the  Continent, 
it  was  said,  letters  had  been  received  expressing  approbation 
of  the  scheme.  There  was  also  a  hint  of  national  benefits  in 
the  assertion  that  ‘it  is  designed  to  plant  near  the  English  [i.e. 
of  Carolina],  for  mutual  defence,  and  to  consult  on  the  besl 
ways  and  means  for  the  common  Safety  of  the  Colony,  the 
promoting  of  Trade,  and  the  Nations  Interest  in  those  parts.’ 
In  the  same  glowing  terms  as  in  Coxe’s  memorials  were  de¬ 
scribed  the  navigability  of  the  chosen  river,  and  the  valuable 
products  of  that  land.  Two  organizations  to  promote  the  enter¬ 
prise  were  announced :  a  ‘Company’  to  colonize,  govern,  and 
control  all  matters  of  land  and  trade,  and  a  ‘Society’  of  City 
merchants  to  provide  on  contract  ships  and  transportation. 
Stock  in  the  ‘Company’  was  offered  at  £25  a  share  or  ‘action’ 
which  entitled  investors  to  dividends  and  400  acres  of  land.  A 
quarter-share,  with  100  acres,  was  offered  each  settler,  and 
also  ‘Transport,  and  Dyet  free.’  A  joint-stock  for  trade  was 
described,  and  the  conditions  on  the  emigrant  ships  carefully 
regulated.  Meetings  of  the  ‘Committee  of  the  Company’  were 
advertised  to  be  held  at  a  tavern  near  Cheapside  and  at  the 
residence  of  the  Marquis.  The  illusion,  at  least,  was  conveyed 
of  businesslike  activity  and  a  serious  purpose  of  colonization.23 

23  The  conveyance  is  in  Rawlinson  MSS  A,  271,  f.  26.  The  Proposals, 
which  so  far  as  I  am  aware  have  not  before  been  described,  were  printed  on 
two  sides  of  one  sheet,  without  title-page  or  date.  The  only  copy  that  I  have 
seen  is  in  a  volume  of  miscellaneous  Tracts  relating  to  America  and  the 
West  Indies,  XVIII,  in  the  British  Museum  (BM  816  m  18). 


56 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


The  French,  at  any  rate,  were  impressed.  News  of  these 
procedings  was  carried  to  Iberville,  who  was  preparing  the 
French  Mississippi  expedition  at  Rochefort.  The  exact  destina¬ 
tion  of  the  English  long  remained  in  doubt;  Coxe’s  ambition, 
certainly,  did  not  stop  at  the  Apalachicola.  The  English-Hugue- 
not  expedition,  Iberville  heard,  was  rapidly  forming;  captains 
had  been  chosen ;  the  King  petitioned  for  vessels ;  Hennepin 
was  sent  for  from  Holland.  The  French  ministry,  too,  was  at 
first  much  disturbed.  During  the  summer  a  secret  agent  was  in¬ 
structed  to  watch  closely  the  activities  of  the  English  company. 
His  reports  in  the  autumn  of  delays  at  London,  and  of  a  rumor 
that  the  promoters  were  awaiting  authorization  from  Parlia¬ 
ment,  brought  relief.24  Meanwhile,  from  the  Hague,  Bonre- 
paus  advised  that  the  restless  Hennepin  be  permitted  to  return 
to  Canada  from  France:  not  that  he  could  be  useful  there,  but 
to  prevent  him  from  further  exciting  the  English.  The  King 
consented,  but  Hennepin  seems  to  have  determined  instead 
upon  an  Italian  voyage,  which  would  serve  as  well.  Apparently 
the  Recollet  was  embarrassed  by  his  new  reputation  in  Eng¬ 
land  as  an  expert  on  the  West  and  a  collaborator  in  the  English 
project.25  The  result,  naturally,  of  all  these  reports  was  to 
hasten  the  despatch  of  the  French  fleet.26 

The  race  for  the  Mississippi  was  on  in  earnest.  The  Span¬ 
ish,  mistaking  the  French  objective,  hastened  to  secure  Pensa¬ 
cola  Bay,  where  an  outpost  against  the  French  had  been 
decreed  as  early  as  1694.27  In  October,  1698,  Iberville  sailed 
from  Brest,  and  Arriola  from  Vera  Cruz.  The  same  month 
saw  the  despatch  from  London  by  the  Carolana  undertakers  of 
two  small  armed  vessels  to  undertake  a  preliminary  survey  of 
the  Gulf  coast.  In  November  the  Spaniards,  first  upon  the  scene, 
occupied  Pensacola  Bay.  In  March,  1699,  Iberville  entered  the 
Mississippi.28  But  Captain  Bond  and  his  companions  prudently 
wintered  at  Charles  Town,  where  they  learned  of  the  western 

24  Archives  Nat.,  Marine,  B2,  136,  ff.  27,  84,  253-254;  Margry  (ed.), 
Decouvertcs,  IV,  Introduction,  xv-xvi,  58-62,  80,  82,  88. 

25  Bonrepaus-Ponchartrain  correspondence,  loc.  cit. 

20  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertcs.  IV.  82. 

27  W.  E.  Dunn,  Spanish  and  French  Rivalry,  pp.  171-84. 

28  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvcrtes,  IV.  87-209.  At  Santo  Domingo  news  was 
received  of  Coxe’s  fleet  (p.  88)  ;  at  Pensacola,  in  January,  the  Spanish  were 
found  in  possession  (p.  96). 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 


57 


exploits  of  the  provincials  and  arranged  a  rendezvous  for  the 
next  year  with  the  Chickasaw  traders  on  the  Mississippi.  It  was 
not,  indeed,  until  May,  1699,  that  their  voyage  of  reconnais¬ 
sance  was  resumed,  with  a  province  vessel,  the  Carolina  Galley, 
replacing  one  of  the  English  ships.  Coasting  along  the  Gulf 
from  Florida  Cape  to  Rio  Panuco  the  explorers  altogether 
missed  the  Apalachicola.  But  the  Mississippi  they  discovered 
from  the  sea,  August  29,  1699.  Captain  Bond  navigated  the 
Carolina  Galley  a  hundred  miles  up  the  river.  But  that  was 
Bond’s  sole  claim  to  glory.  ‘Un  estourdy  peu  capable,’  Iberville 
described  him  from  old  acquaintance  in  Hudson  Bay.  Bienville 
had  little  trouble  in  halting  him  at  the  Detour  des  Anglais  and 
warning  him  away,  although  the  Frenchman  had  with  him 
only  two  canoes,  engaged  in  sounding  the  river.29  Bond’s  threat 
to  return  next  year  with  an  English  colony  proved  as  empty  as 
Iberville  predicted.  The  French,  however,  determined  to  estab¬ 
lish  a  post  to  hold  the  sea-approaches  to  the  Mississippi.  But  the 
real  English  peril,  as  Iberville  was  soon  to  learn,  lurked  in 
another  quarter. 

While  the  Carolana  expedition  was  homeward  bound  with 
charts  and  surveys  and  news  of  the  French  intrusion,  Dr.  Coxe 
was  preparing  to  despatch  his  Huguenot  colony,  and  meanwhile 
defending  his  own  pretensions  and  the  claims  of  England  be¬ 
fore  the  Board  of  Trade.30  Reverting  to  his  proposal  of  1690 
he  petitioned  the  King  to  add  a  great  tract  to  the  north  of 
Carolana.  Later,  when  it  appeared  that  Carolana  did  not  include 
the  Gulf  coast,  where  he  planned  to  colonize,  he  asked  for  a 


29  Ibid.,  pp.  344,  361,  395-7 ;  Journals  of  the  Board  of  Trade  (hereinafter 
cited  JBT),  February  14,  16,  1700;  C.O.  5:1259,  D  23;  1260,  E  1,  E  2; 
1288,  ff.  165  f.;  CSP.AWI,  1699,  p.  526;  1700,  pp.  69-71;  Coxe,  Description 
of  Carolana  (1722),  preface,  pp.  [iii ] - [iv ] .  See  Alvord  and  Carter  (eds.), 
The  Nezv  Regime,  pp.  415-7,  for  a  letter  to  Shelburne,  October  31,  1766, 
printed  from  Lansdowne  MSS  48:  263  C,  in  which  Phineas  Lyman  sum¬ 
marized  a  portion  of  ‘the  Journal  of  Capt.  Bond  of  the  Carolina  Galley 
(whose  Original  I  have  now  by  me).’ 

30  JBT,  October  12,  13,  20,  November  14,  16,  December  15,  18,  1699, 
February  15,  16,  1700.  C.O.  5:1259,  D  13,  D  32,  D  32  i;  1260,  E  1;  1288, 
f.  122 ;  S.  P.  Domestic,  Entry  Book  238,  p.  363 ;  CSP.A  Wl,  1699,  pp.  459,  572 ; 
1700,  p.  73.  The  Post  Boy,  September  19-21,  1699,  reported :  ‘We  hear  three 
ships  are  fitting  in  the  River  Thames,  in  order  to  go  and  settle  a  Colony  on 
the  Coast  of  Florida,  on  board  of  which  ships  several  Reformed  officers, 
and  French  Refugees,  will  go  thither  to  settle,  and  so  to  try  their  Fortune 
in  that  part  of  the  World.’ 


58 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


further  southward  extension.31  ‘I  wish  that  the  Doctor  would 
come  into  these  parts  of  the  World,  and  run  out  the  bounds  of 
his  countries,’  commented  Nicholson,  ‘and  then  I  suppose  he 
would  have  so  much  of  the  Continent  of  America  that  he  would 
not  care  to  come  again.’32  Coxe’s  scheme  was  to  transform  his 
propriety  into  a  great  stock-company,  to  be  incorporated  as  the 
Florida  Company.  His  title  was  held  valid  by  the  Attorney- 
General  ;33  meanwhile,  it  appears  that  he  had  reached  an  agree¬ 
ment  with  the  Carolina  proprietors  upon  a  mutual  boundary 
at  the  Altamaha  River.  At  the  demand  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
Coxe,  on  November  16,  1699,  submitted  an  abstract  of  his 
title,  a  paper  containing  ‘A  Demonstration  of  the  Just  Preten¬ 
sions  of  His  Majesty  the  King  of  England  unto  the  Province 
of  Carolana  alias  Florida,’  and  a  further  account  of  the  com¬ 
modities  of  Carolana.34  With  other  memorials  these  documents 
of  1699  were  incorporated  by  the  younger  Coxe  into  his  1722 
pamphlet.  They  were  a  curious  medley  of  fact  and  fable. 
InterwToven  with  the  undoubted  exploits  of  the  Virginians  and 
Carolinians  were  other  more  dubious  tales.  ‘The  Carolina 
Traders  with  the  Indians,’  he  wrote,  ‘are  now  and  have  long 
been  as  well  acquainted  with  those  parts  as  most  of  the  English 
with  the  Road  from  London  to  Yorke  and  have  frequently 
Travelled  to  the  borders  of  New  Mexico  in  their  trading  voy¬ 
ages.’35  After  hearing  Coxe  in  person  the  Board  of  Trade 

31C.O.  5:1259,  D  21,  D  21  (i)  ;  1288  ff.  129,  139-43;  CSP.AWI,  1699,  pp. 
517,  578-80. 

33C.O.  5:1312,  E  16. 

33C.O.  5:1259,  D  32,  D  32(i)  ;  1288  ff.  136-139;  CSPAWI,  1699,  pp. 
572,  578.  In  Rawlinson  MSS  A  305  f.  2,  is  a  ‘Draught  of  the  scheme  I  drew 
for  Dr  Daniel  Cox  many  years  since  for  the  settlement  of  New  [blank] 
which  we  called  the  New  Empire  written  by  Mr.  Spooner.’  This  dates  from 
the  reign  of  William  and  Mary,  and  refers  either  to  Carolana  or  Coxe’s 
earlier  project  of  1690.  For  so  ‘vastly  greate’  a  grant  Spooner  suggested  the 
organization  of  ‘the  Imperiall  Compa.’  quite  in  scale,  with  a  capital  stock 
of  £400,000  in  £5  shares ;  20,000  to  be  retained  by  the  fourteen  original  pro¬ 
prietors  ;  5,000  to  be  promoters’  shares ;  20,000  to  be  sold  to  raise  funds  for 
colonization,  20,000  others  to  be  sold  for  the  profit  of  the  proprietors ;  5,000 
‘mayden  shares’  were  reserved  for  benefactors.  The  remaining  10,000  should 
be  distributed  among  1,000  ‘Associates,’  to  include  eminent  divines,  Anglicans 
and  dissenters,  city  merchants,  and  ‘some  of  the  most  publick  leading 
Gentl[men]  &  of  best  interest  in  every  County  of  England  and  Wales.’ 
Thus  a  national  interest  would  be  created.  A  leading  object  was,  the  trans¬ 
portation  of  the  poor,  especially  imprisoned  debtors — an  interesting  antici¬ 
pation  of  the  Bray-Oglethorpe  project. 

34  C.O.  5  :1259,  D  22,  D  23,  D  24;  1288,  pp.  129  f. 

35C.O.  5:1259,  D  23,  24. 


59 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 

drafted  its  somewhat  equivocal  representation  upon  Carolana 
of  December  21,  1699. 36  The  promoter’s  plea  that  the  French 
must  be  checked  in  the  West,  where  they  were  endeavoring  to 
engross  the  Indian  trade  by  building  forts  and  trading-houses 
all  the  way  from  Canada  to  the  Mississippi,  had  made  a  certain 
impression.  Coxe’s  doctrine  of  encirclement,  indeed,  echoed 
warnings  which  the  Board  was  receiving  at  the  moment  from 
all  the  frontier  colonies.  But  the  shrewd  mercantilists  of  White¬ 
hall  were  after  all  half-hearted  ‘imperialists’ ;  they  found  many 
objections  to  the  scheme.  A  colony  on  the  Gulf  would  be  diffi¬ 
cult  to  defend;  French  Huguenots,  especially,  would  be  liable 
to  molestation.  There  was  danger,  too,  of  draining  population 
from  the  southern  colonies.  In  the  interest  of  British  trade  was 
it  wise  to  arouse  the  jealousy  of  Spain?  The  Board,  moreover, 
was  suspicious  of  stock-jobbery  by  the  Carolana  promoters. 
The  multiplicity  of  plantations  was  held  to  promote  piracy  and 
illicit  trade.  Finally,  since  Coxe’s  proposals  rested  ‘as  much  on 
considerations  of  State  as  of  Trade,’  they  were  referred  with¬ 
out  further  endorsement  to  the  Crown. 

How  far  did  the  King  and  Council  share  these  doubts  ?  It 
is  certain  that  early  in  1700,  when  it  was  known  that  the 
French  were  in  possession  of  the  Mississippi,  Coxe  was  forced, 
reluctantly,  to  abandon  his  efforts  to  establish  the  Huguenots 
on  the  Gulf.  Instead  he  sought  to  settle  them  in  Norfolk  county, 
Virginia.  Several  hundred  were  sent  over;  but  after  various 
vicissitudes  they  were  seated  instead  at  Manikin  Town,  in  the 
piedmont.37  The  younger  Coxe  asserted  that  William  III  had 
promised  aid  to  the  original  Carolana  scheme,  and  that  Lord 
Lonsdale,  the  Privy  Seal,  and  other  notables  had  given  their 
patronage,  but  that  the  death  of  Lonsdale,  and  soon  after  of 
the  King,  with  the  ensuing  war,  had  frustrated  the  design. 
Coxe  seems  to  have  revived  his  proposals  early  in  the  War  of 
the  Spanish  Succession.38  Again  in  1719  he  was  heard  by  the 
Board  of  Trade,  which  was  seeking  substantiation,  from  any 
quarter,  of  the  English  title  to  the  West,  to  use  in  boundary 
discussions  in  Paris.39  But  after  1700  his  sole  significance  was 

3SC.O.  5:1288,  ff.  139-43.  CSP,AWI,  1699,  pp.  578-80. 

37  C.O.  5:1288,  ff.  165-7;  1259,  D  35.  Alvord  and  Bidgood,  First  Explora¬ 
tions,  p.  233  note. 

38  Coxe,  Description  of  Carolana,  1722,  preface,  pp.  [iv]-[vii], 

39  See  below,  pp.  224-6. 


60 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


as  a  voice  warning  England  against  French  encirclement  in 
North  America. 

Thus  in  France,  in  England,  and  also  in  the  American  colo¬ 
nies,  the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  seen  a 
new  birth  of  interest  in  the  trans-Appalachian  West.  From  this 
epoch  the  international  conflict  in  America  began  to  assume 
its  continental  character;  Coxe’s  failure  and  the  success  of 
Iberville  in  the  race  for  the  Mississippi  meant  that  the  brunt 
of  the  struggle  in  the  Gulf  region  and  the  lower  Mississippi 
valley  would  be  borne  by  the  southern  traders.  Already  the  re¬ 
ports  of  the  French  intention  to  colonize  on  the  Gulf  and  the 
publication  of  Hennepin’s  new  books  had  stirred  English 
officials,  from  New  York  to  Carolina,  to  propose  counter¬ 
schemes  of  western  trade.  But  it  was  only  in  Carolina,  where 
the  western  trade  was  already  well  developed,  that  these  projects 
had  a  significant  sequel. 

As  early  as  1695,  Francis  Nicholson,  then  governor  of 
Maryland,  had  forecast  the  dangerous  consequences  of  the  com¬ 
pletion  by  the  French  of  La  Salle’s  design.  ‘I  hope  they  will 
never  be  able  to  do  it,’  he  had  written  Shrewsbury,  ‘for  if  they 
should,  and  gain  the  Indians  at  the  back  of  us,  it  may  be  of 
fatal  consequence  to  most  of  these  countries.’  He  advised 
watchfulness  at  Jamaica  and  the  Bahamas,  and  especially  the 
extension  of  the  Indian  trade  from  the  southern  provinces  to 
prevent  the  Indians,  if  the  French  came,  from  going  over  to 
them  in  a  body.40  Nicholson  was  confirmed  in  these  views  by 
an  interview  with  a  band  of  Shawnee  (Savannah)  Indians 
from  the  Carolina  border  and  with  their  companion:  a  French¬ 
man,  who,  Nicholson  reported,  not  quite  accurately,  had  been 
with  La  Salle  ‘that  Journey  he  was  killed.’  This,  surely,  was 
Jean  Couture.  One  of  the  Indians  with  the  aid  of  the  voyageur 
drew  a  rude  map  of  the  route  to  the  nearest  French  settlement, 
in  the  Illinois  country,  and  thence  by  the  Mississippi  to  the 
Gulf.  In  his  report  of  the  episode  to  the  Board  of  Trade,  in 
August,  1698, 41  Nicholson  said  that  the  draught  agreed  in 

"CO.  5:718,  no.  18. 

41  Archives  of  Maryland,  XXIII.  500.  It  is  clear  from  Nicholson’s  refer¬ 
ence  to  page  250  in  Hennepin  that  he  possessed  a  copy  of  A  New  Discovery, 
1698,  in  the  so-called  ‘Bon-’  edition.  On  this  episode  see  my  essay  in  MVHR, 

III.  11. 


61 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 

some  sort  with  Hennepin’s  maps,  for  he  had  lately  been  reading 
the  New  Discovery  fresh  from  the  London  press,  as  well  as 
the  alarming  reports  in  the  ‘monthly  Mercurys’  of  the  French 
Mississippi  preparations.42  He  was  convinced  by  the  Recollet’s 
book  and  by  his  own  inquiries  ‘that  if  they  settle  that  River, 
that  and  the  River  of  Canada  will  encompass  all  the  English 
Dominions  here.’  ‘I  am  afraid,’  he  added,  ‘that  now  please  God, 
there  is  a  peace,  the  French  will  be  able  to  doe  more  dammage 
to  these  Countrys,  than  they  were  able  to  doe  in  the  War,’  and 
he  urged  that  orders  should  issue  to  all  governors  to  encourage 
a  trade  with  the  Indians  westward.  Nicholson’s  scheme  in¬ 
volved  the  chartering  of  companies  of  English  or  colonial  un¬ 
dertakers  in  the  interior  trade,  to  undersell  the  French  beyond 
the  mountains.  The  English,  he  added,  should  also  make  settle¬ 
ments  among  the  Indians  as  the  French  had  done,  ‘and  build 
Vessels  upon  their  Lakes.’ 

Thus  Nicholson,  also,  had  envisaged  the  menace  of  French 
encirclement,  a  conception  only  vaguely  understood  for  some 
years  to  come  in  England,  but  one  which  ultimately  shaped 
British  western  policy.  After  a  few  months  he  became  governor 
of  Virginia,  where  he  anticipated  certain  features  of  the  well- 
known  expansionist  program  of  Alexander  Spots  wood.  Quite 
in  keeping  with  Nicholson’s  proposals  to  the  Board  of  Trade 
were  the  suggestions  now  brought  forward  by  Colonel  Cad- 
wallader  Jones.  Jones  was  an  old  Virginia  Indian  fighter  and 
trader,  formerly  commander  of  the  Rappahannock  fort.  His 
caravans  had  followed  the  Occaneechi  path  into  North  Caro¬ 
lina;  like  Spotswood  later,  he  had  searched  for  a  path  to  the 
West  through  the  Blue  Ridge,  ‘our  Cawcasean  Mountains.’ 
Jones  returned  to  Virginia  from  the  Bahamas  and  England  in 
1698,  and  once  more  embarked  upon  frontier  enterprises.  He, 
too,  had  read  Hennepin’s  New  Discovery,  ‘and  imediately 
fell  into  a  labour  of  the  mind,  that  from  the  father  Some  greate 
advantage  might  accrew  to  this  Country.’  The  result  was  his 
interesting  essay  of  January  17,  1699,  entitled,  ‘Louissiania 

“Nicholson  alluded  to  the  Present  State  of  Europe,  IX,  no.  1  (January, 
1698),  pp.  48  f.  See  supra,  note  5.  On  the  rest  of  this  paragraph  see  also 
Archives  of  Maryland,  XXV.  586. 


/ 


62 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


and  Virginia  Improved.’43  Jones  proposed  the  creation  of  a 
company  of  gentlemen-adventurers  to  discover  the  pass,  and 
then  to  develop  a  trade  from  Virginia  to  the  Great  Lakes.  His 
chart  accompanying  the  essay  was  based  upon  a  sight  of  Henne¬ 
pin’s  map,  and  upon  his  own  experiences.  It  showed  some  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  the  Charles  Town  trade,  for  he  indicated  the 
presence  of  Carolinians  among  the  Cherokees  on  the  ‘Uge’ 
(Yuchi,  or  Tennessee)  River.  Nicholson,  naturally,  supported 
Jones’s  scheme;  he  presented  it  to  his  council  in  February44  and 
to  the  Burgesses  in  May.45  But  it  failed  for  lack  of  subscribers 
in  the  colony.46  Unwilling  to  accept  defeat  in  this  essential 
policy,  Nicholson  turned  to  England.  He  appealed  to  the  Board 
of  Trade  to  apprise  the  London  merchants  of  this  opportunity 
to  make  a  profit  and  at  the  same  time  to  prevent  the  French 
from  engrossing  the  western  trade,  ‘and  further  settling  to 
the  westward  of  the  English  on  this  Continent.’47  But  the 
Board  replied  that  they  had  insufficient  information  to  de¬ 
termine  ‘whether  it  be  proper  for  us  to  intermeddle  in  the  pro¬ 
moting’  of  the  trade  in  England.  As  for  colonial  adventures 
westward,  they  cautiously  urged  that  these  should  not  ‘interfere 
with  or  discourage  the  planting  of  Tobacco,  which  is  the  maine 
thing  to  be  pursued  in  that  Colony.’48  And  so  the  projected 
Virginian  trade  offensive  languished.49 

But  in  any  case  Nicholson’s  information  of  the  western 
country  was  vague,  and  Virginia  remote  from  the  routes  then 
practicable  for  the  trans-Appalachian  trade.  From  1698  to  1700, 
however,  Nicholson  was  in  active  correspondence,  seeking  to 
concert  a  vigorous  western  policy,  with  the  governors  of  the 
two  colonies  whose  situation  and  Indian  relations  fitted  them 

43  C.O.  5:1310,  C  37;  printed  in  Virginia  Magazine  of  History  and  Bi¬ 
ography,  XXX,  329-34,  with  the  map,  accompanying  Fairfax  Harrison’s 
article  on  ‘Western  Explorations  in  Virginia  between  Lederer  and  Spots- 
wood,’  pp.  323-40.  Documents  not  cited  by  Harrison  discredit  his  view  that 
Nicholson  was  indifferent  to  Jones’s  project. 

44  Virginia  Council  Minutes,  MSS,  Library  of  Congress,  1698-1700,  p.  12 
(February  23,  1698/9). 

43  Journals  of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  1695-1702,  pp.  166,  169,  176,  178. 

M  C.O.  5:1310,  C  2;  CSP/IWI,  1699,  p.  314. 

47  Ibid. 

44  Va.  Mag.  of  Hist,  and  Biog.,  XXII.  40.  See  also  JBT,  October  10,  1699. 

40  Harrison  points  out  ( loc .  cit.,  p.  336)  that  the  law  of  1705,  under  which 

later  Spotswood’s  Indian  company  was  organized,  followed  Jones’s  plan. 
See  also  Virginia  Council  Minutes,  MSS,  under  February  23,  June  22,  1699. 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 


63 


peculiarly  for  leadership  in  the  new  continental  phase  of  the 
Anglo-French  contest:  Lord  Bellomont  of  New  York,  and 
Joseph  Blake  of  South  Carolina.  In  New  York,  Robert  Liv¬ 
ingston  had  brought  forward  a  scheme  of  trade50  with  the 
tribes  of  the  Ohio  valley  similar  to  that  of  Jones.  Bellomont  was 
alarmed  by  the  decline  of  the  Iroquois,  and  by  the  progress  of 
the  French  among  the  western  Indians.  Subordinating  the 
local  interest  of  Albany  to  imperial  ends,  he  was  eager  to 
secure  the  cooperation  of  the  governors  of  Pennsylvania, 
Maryland,  Virginia,  and  Carolina  to  bring  the  Miami,  Chip¬ 
pewa,  and  Ottawa  within  the  English  orbit.51  In  the  fall  of 
1699  he  proposed  to  the  Board  of  Trade  that  those  governors 
should  meet  with  him  at  Philadelphia  during  the  following 
summer  to  promote  trade  expansion  westward.52  The  Board 
approved  the  conference,  and  further  suggested  the  raising  of 
contributions  from  the  colonies  to  finance  Indian  presents  and 
frontier  forts  in  New  York  and  elsewhere  ‘untill  some  proper 
and  effectual  provision  can  be  made  here.’53  Unfortunately  this 
conference  miscarried.54  But  from  the  discussions  of  these 
years  it  was  becoming  clearer  that  if  the  French  were  to  be 
prevented  from  linking  their  settlements  in  Canada  with  the 
Gulf,  trade  with  the  distant  Indians  must  be  encouraged.  Bello¬ 
mont  and  Nicholson  had  fixed  their  eyes  upon  the  Great  Lakes 
and  the  Ohio,  but  the  latter  had  also  been  alarmed  at  the  French 
enterprise  in  the  Southwest.  Furthermore,  it  had  become  ap¬ 
parent  that  the  situation  of  South  Carolina,  its  extensive  trade 
with  the  western  Indians  and  its  experience  in  border  conflicts 
with  Florida,  made  it  the  natural  head  of  English  opposition 
to  the  French  in  that  quarter  of  America.  Even  the  Board  of 
Trade  showed  a  vague  appreciation  of  the  possibilities  of  the 
Carolina  Indian  system.  In  December,  1699,  they  summoned  a 
certain  James  Boyd,  ‘a  Frenchman  lately  come  from  Carolina,’ 
to  advise  them  on  ‘the  expediency  of  promoting  a  new  Trade 
with  some  Indians  at  the  Back  of  Carolina.’  Boyd  was  able  to 

Documents  relative  to  the  Colonial  History  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
edited  by  E.  B.  O’Callaghan,  IV.  500. 

51  See  Bellomont  to  Nicholson,  November  12,  1698,  and  May  6,  1699,  in 
C.O.  5:1309,  C.  24;  1310,  C  36;  CSP,AWI,  1699,  pp.  50,  319-20. 

52  Docs.  rel.  to  Col.  Hist.  N.  Y.,  IV.  590. 

53  Ibid.,  pp.  632,  699  f. 

H  Colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina,  edited  by  W.  L.  Saunders,  I.  542. 


64 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


inform  their  Lordships  that  ‘the  English  Indian  Traders  in- 
habitating  there,  had  made  many  Journeys  through  the  Country 
westward  to  above  1000  or  1200  miles  distance.’55 

The  alarm  awakened  in  England  and  her  colonies  by  Iber¬ 
ville’s  expedition  of  1698  was  keenest  in  South  Carolina. 
Knowledge  of  a  relatively  easy  land  communication  with  the 
Gulf  and  lower  Mississippi  aroused  fears  of  a  speedy  conquest 
by  the  French,  or  by  the  Spanish  and  French  combined.  Edward 
Randolph  reported  that  the  more  timid  settlers,  recalling  the 
Proprietors’  neglect  during  the  last  war,  talked  of  removal  to  a 
safer  region  should  the  French  intrusion  develop,  or  the  death 
of  Charles  II  unite  the  two  crowns.56  In  November,  1698,  when 
Iberville’s  fleet  was  not  a  month  out  of  Brest,  the  Commons 
House  of  Assembly  requested  Governor  Blake  to  determine 
whether  the  French  were  settled  on  the  Mississippi,  and  if  so, 
to  consider  the  best  way  to  remove  them.57 

But  the  able  kinsman  of  the  great  Admiral58  needed  neither 
the  clamors  of  his  fellow  colonists,  nor  the  freely  proffered 
counsels  of  Nicholson,59  to  arouse  his  vigilance.  So  certain  was 
he  of  the  influence  his  traders  had  won  over  the  western  tribes, 
that  he  assured  Nicholson,  over-confidently,  there  would  be  no 
difficulty  in  hindering  the  French  from  settling  on  the  Missis¬ 
sippi.  An  episode  of  1698  reported  in  Florida  cast  light  upon 
the  scope  of  Blake’s  ambitions.  During  the  summer  an  emissary 
from  St.  Augustine,  Francisco  Romo  de  Uriza,  saw  at  the 
governor’s  house  in  Charles  Town  several  Indians  from  Es- 
piritu  Santo  bay,  or  Pensacola.  Blake  pointed  out  the  place  on 

E5JBT,  December  8,  12,  1699. 

E'C.O.  5:1258,  C  22  (p.  172). 

57  JCHA,  November  18,  1698. 

58  Langdon  Cheves,  ‘Blake  of  South  Carolina,’  in  SCHGM,  I.  153  ff. 

“  C.O.  5:1311,  D  56;  CSP.AWI,  1700,  pp.  326-7.  In  a  letter  of  September 
27,  1699,  Nicholson  asked  Blake  whether  his  traders’  accounts  agreed  with 
Hennepin’s  book,  which  he  supposed  Blake  possessed,  but  for  fear  he  did 
not,  he  sent  a  copy.  Did  Blake,  one  wonders,  note  Hennepin’s  references  to 
his  own  agent  for  exploration,  Jean  Couture,  ‘whom  I  knew  particularly 
well,’  wrote  the  Recollet,  ‘when  I  lived  in  Canada.’  Elsewhere,  denying  that 
La  Salle  ever  ‘found  out  the  true  Mouth  of  the  River  Meschasipi,  nor 
Father  Anastasius  neither,  who  never  was  in  that  Part  of  the  Country,’  he 
added :  ‘And  if  the  last  did  luckily  light  upon  it  by  the  help  of  the  Savages 
that  guided  him,  ’twas  owing  to  the  Directions  he  receiv’d  from  M.  Couture,  I 
.  .  .  but  it  may  be  he  will  give  us  more  light  into  this  matter  hereafter’.  | 
A  New  Discovery,  1698,  ‘Continuation,’  pp.  44-6;  from  Nouveau  voyage 
(1698),  pp.  97,  99. 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 


65 


a  large  map.  When  Romo  claimed  that  it  was  within  the  Spanish 
jurisdiction,  Blake  replied  that  he  expected  to  occupy  it  next 
year  for  England!60 

Indeed,  while  Nicholson  and  Bellomont  were  discussing  ‘a 
western  trade,’  Blake  had  been  despatching  his  traders  to  the 
Gulf  and  the  Mississippi.  Among  his  special  measures  of  1699 
was  an  expedition  by  way  of  the  Cherokee  country  and  the 
Tennessee  and  Ohio  rivers  to  the  Mississippi.  His  party  of 
traders  carried  presents  of  ammunition  and  merchandise  for 
the  river  tribes,  and  credentials  from  the  governor  claiming  the 
Mississippi  country  as  a  dependency  of  Great  Britain.  Their 
guide  was  perhaps  the  only  man  who  knew  that  passage  to  the 
West,  the  renegade  servant  of  Tonti,  Jean  Couture.  In  Febru¬ 
ary,  1700,  the  party  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Arkansas,  where 
Couture  had  formerly  commanded  at  Tonti’s  post.  Following 
the  usual  tactics  of  the  Charles  Town  traders  among  the  distant 
tribes,  Couture’s  company  stirred  up  the  Quapaw  Indians  to 
raid  the  Chakchiuma  for  slaves.  In  May,  1700,  Le  Sueur,  in 
his  voyage  to  the  Sioux,  encountered  one  of  these  traders  at 
the  Quapaw  village.  The  Carolinian  shared  his  provisions  with 
the  French  explorer,  but  asserted  the  English  claim  to  the 
Mississippi  valley,  and  boasted  that  by  the  route  which  he  had 
followed,  the  English  would  yet  engross  its  trade.61 

On  the  Tennessee  River,  indeed,  the  English  were  securely 
in  control — so  the  missionary  priests  and  other  French  travel¬ 
lers  on  the  Mississippi  reported.62  Already,  too,  the  pioneers  of 
Louisiana  had  learned  that  Carolinians  had  been  established 
for  several  years  among  the  Chickasaw.  And  now  English 
traders  had  appeared  in  canoes  on  the  water  highway  from 
Canada  to  the  new  colony.  Inevitably  the  event  created  a  pro¬ 
found  sensation  in  Louisiana.  Iberville  saw  in  these  adventurers 
the  forerunners  of  a  wave  of  settlement  which  would  soon 

60  Dunn,  Spanish  and  French  Rivalry,  pp.  197-8. 

61 V.  W.  Crane,  ‘The  Tennessee  River  as  the  Road  to  Carolina,’  in 
MVHR,  III.  12  f. 

e2  The  Jesuit  Relations  and  Allied  Documents,  edited  by  Reuben  G. 
Thwaites,  LXV.  114,  117-9;  Early  Voyages  up  and  down  the  Mississippi, 
edited  by  John  G.  Shea  (1861),  pp.  60,  69  ;  Benard  de  la  Harpe  [attributed  to], 
Journal  historique  concernant  l’etablissement  des  Franqois  a  la  Louisiane 
(cited  from  contemporary  transcripts  in  the  American  Philosophical  Society 
and  the  Library  of  Congress,  rather  than  from  the  inaccurate  New  Orleans 
edition,  1831),  August,  1703. 


66 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


pour  over  the  mountains  and  possess  the  heart  of  the  continent. 
A  more  immediate  danger  was  that  the  coureurs  de  bois  of 
Canada,  forbidden  to  bring  their  beaver  down  the  Mississippi, 
and  cut  off  from  the  Montreal  market  by  their  misdemeanors, 
would  follow  the  route  now  opened  by  the  Ohio  and  Tennessee 
Rivers  to  carry  their  peltry  to  the  English.  It  was  this  fear  that 
led  Iberville  to  urge  the  concession  to  Juchereau  de  St.  Denys 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio,  and  to  seek  to  lift  the  ban  on  the 
selling  of  beaver  in  Louisiana.  As  a  matter  of  fact  in  February, 
1701,  a  party  of  four  coureurs  de  bois  actually  penetrated  to 
South  Carolina.  They  had  followed  the  route  of  Couture  and 
his  companions,  whose  exploit  was  probably  well-known  to 
them.  Although  Bellefeuille  and  Soton  and  their  companions 
were  rebuffed  by  the  assembly  in  their  overtures  of  trade,  news 
of  their  wanderings  aroused  even  greater  concern  in  New 
France  than  the  events  of  1700.  ‘Pour  moy,  Monseigneur,’ 
wrote  Vandreuil  to  the  minister,  ‘je  reviens  a  mon  but,  c’est 
qu’ils  y  ont  este,  et  que  voild  le  chemin  ouvert Z63 

In  1700  Joseph  Blake  had  died,  before  he  had  drafted  that 
comprehensive  plan  to  deal  with  the  French  danger  which  he 
had  assured  Nicholson  that  he  meant  to  send  home.64  By  the 
spring  of  1700  Charles  Town  knew  for  a  certainty  from  the 
returning  western  traders,  Welch,  Dodsworth  and  others,  that 
the  lower  Mississippi  was  in  French  hands.65  It  was  left  to 
Blake’s  successor,  James  Moore,  veteran  trader  and  explorer, 
to  formulate  a  scheme  to  conquer  that  region  for  English  trade 
and  English  sovereignty.66 

At  last  the  trading  frontiers  of  France  and  England  had 
come  into  sharp  collision  in  one  part  of  the  trans-Appalachian 
West.  Previous  contacts  on  the  Great  Lakes  had  been  momen¬ 
tary  and  indecisive;  in  the  North  it  was  the  Indian  of  the  Long 
House,  rather  than  the  English  trader,  who  extended  the  com¬ 
mercial  interests  of  England  into  the  western  wilderness.  It 

"  MV  HR,  III.  13-17;  Alvord,  Illinois  Country,  pp.  130  f„  133  f.  Sec  James 
Moore  and  council  to  Proprietors,  April  21,  1701,  in  Secretary’s  record  of 
commissions  and  instructions,  1685-1715,  MS,  p.  196. 

MC.O.  5:1311,  D  56,  nos.  9,  10,  10  (liv)  ;  CSP,AWI,  1700,  pp.  311,  326. 

65  Ibid.,  pp.  326  f.;  1701,  p.  408;  C.O.  5:1311,  D  56;  1409,  f.  144. 

06  Already  in  1699  Moore  had  assured  Edward  Randolph^  that  with  fifty 
Whites  and  a  hundred  Indians  he  could  at  small  expense  discover  and  ex¬ 
plore  the  Mississippi  (C.O.  5:1258,  C  22,  p.  172). 


67 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION 

was  therefore  in  the  South  that  the  Anglo-French  struggle  in 
its  continental  phase  was  first  clearly  envisaged  by  men  of  im¬ 
perialist  imagination,  that  new  policies  of  aggression  and  de¬ 
fense  were  first  elaborated  by  French  and  Anglo-American 
leaders. 

Iberville  had  anticipated  English  opposition,  but  had  quite 
failed  to  foresee  the  direction  of  the  attack.  Not  Coxe,  but 
Welch  and  his  comrades  proved  to  be  the  real  adversaries.  One 
tribe  of  Indians  after  another,  as  the  French  made  their  first 
contacts  with  them,  were  found  to  be  the  allies  of  the  Caro¬ 
linians,  or  terror-stricken  victims  of  their  slave-taking  raids. 
In  May,  1699,  Bienville  visited  the  Acolapissa  on  the  Pearl 
River,  west  of  Biloxi.  He  found  them  under  arms,  greatly 
excited,  about  to  attack  his  party,  for  they  had  mistaken  the 
French  for  the  two  ‘Anglichy’  who  had  recently  come  at  the 
head  of  two  hundred  Chickasaw  to  raid  their  village.  The 
French,  Bienville  promptly  assured  them  by  his  interpreter, 
were  enemies  of  the  English  and  eager  for  their  alliance.67 
Thus  were  the  Louisiana  Indians  initiated  into  the  politics  of 
Europe.  Fathers  Davion  and  Montigny,  missionary  priests  of 
Quebec  who  descended  the  Mississippi  that  spring,  encountered 
an  English  trader  at  the  Tunica  village.  Davion  accompanied 
him  on  horseback  to  the  Chickasaw,  and  so  learned  of  the  trade 
which  he  and  his  companions  carried  on  by  pack-horses  from 
distant  Charles  Town.68  More  heartening  was  the  news  that 
the  Pascagoula  brought  to  Biloxi  in  the  fall,  that  the  Choctaws, 
a  powerful  nation  of  whom  they  spoke  with  respect  and  fear, 
had  quarrelled  with  the  English  because  the  latter  bought  slaves 
from  other  Indians.69  The  French,  too,  were  learning  some¬ 
thing  of  politics,  the  intricate  politics  of  the  wilderness  that 
encompassed  Louisiana. 

Iberville  at.  once  perceived  the  need  for  a  comprehensive 
French  program  of  resistance  to  the  English  trading  advance. 
But  in  his  first  measures  he  underrated  the  obstacles.  His  at¬ 
tempt  with  the  support  of  the  ministry  to  persuade  the  Span- 

67  Paris,  Arch.  Nat.,  Marine,  B3,  153,  f.  666 ;  La  Harpe,  Journal  his- 
torique,  May  23,  1699.  For  the  location  and  ethnology  of  the_  tribes  of 
Louisiana,  see  J.  R.  Swanton,  Indian  Tribes  of  the  Lower  Mississippi  Valley 
and  Adjacent  Coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  1911. 

esMargry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  362,  398. 

89  Ibid.,  IV.  456  (Sauvole,  Journal). 


68 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


iards,  now  ruled  by  a  Bourbon,  that  only  the  cession  of  Pensa¬ 
cola  to  France  could  check  the  progress  of  the  Carolinians  to¬ 
wards  the  mine-country,  failed  to  overcome  the  jealous  regard 
of  that  government  for  the  integrity  of  their  colonial  empire.7'0 
In  default  of  Pensacola,  Mobile  was  established,  in  1702, 
avowedly  as  a  point  of  support  for  the  Indians  allied  with  the 
French  and  Spaniards  against  the  English.71  Meanwhile,  a  plan 
for  the  forcible  expulsion  of  the  English  traders  from  among 
the  Chickasaw  had  proved  impossible  of  execution.  Early  in 
1700  Tonti  had  been  instructed  to  lure  the  Charles  Town  emis¬ 
saries  to  the  Tunica  town  on  a  pretext  of  trade,  to  arrest  them, 
and  to  send  them  down  to  Biloxi.  But  the  Taensas  reported  the 
Englishmen  more  numerous  than  had  been  supposed,  and  this 
strategem  was  abandoned.72  Henceforth  the  central  object  of 
Iberville’s  frontier  policy  was  the  promotion  of  a  general  peace 
among  the  Indians,  based  on  friendship  and  trade  with  the 
French.  Negotiations  with  the  Chickasaw  were  begun  by  Tonti 
in  1700, 73  but  were  brought  to  a  head  only  after  two  years. 
Meanwhile  had  occurred  the  crucial  event  in  the  frontier  his¬ 
tory  of  Louisiana:  the  conclusion  of  the  French  alliance  with 
the  Choctaw. 

Prior  to  1700  the  French  apparently  had  no  direct  contact 
with  this  numerous  inland  tribe,  the  bulwark  of  Louisiana 
throughout  its  later  history.  In  April,  Iberville  received  a  cir¬ 
cumstantial  account  of  their  great  strength,  but  at  the  time 
spring  floods  prevented  his  agents  from  penetrating  to  their 
country.74  In  May,  Sauvole  brought  in  two  Choctaw  whom  he 
had  met  at  the  Tohome  village.  These  were  sent  back  with  an 
invitation  to  their  principal  chief  to  come  down  to  Biloxi.  ‘This 
nation,’  Iberville  now  recorded,  ‘is  at  war  with  all  the  other 
nations  to  the  north  and  east  of  them,  allies  of  the  English, 

70  Ibid.,  pp.  476,  484,  489  f.,  543-75 ;  Arch.  Nat.,  Marine,  B3,  153,  f.  666. 
See  Dunn,  Spanish  and  French  Rivalry,  pp.  206-15. 

71  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  372,  548,  578  f. ;  Report  concerning 
Canadian  Archives  for  the  Year  1905,  I.  523. 

”  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  362,  406,  418.  It  was  reported,  however, 
in  a  letter  from  Rochefort  of  March  30,  1700,  printed  in  the  Present  State 
of  Europe,  XI,  no.  8  (August,  1700),  p.  291,  that  Iberville  had  arrested  ‘an 
Englishman  who  treated  with  the  Savages  our  Confederates.  He  came  into 
that  Country  through  the  Rive  Oye 

73  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV,  pp.  418  f.,  430,  479. 

74  Ibid.,  p.  427. 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  QUESTION  69 

who  were  armed  with  muskets.’  75  In  September  a  delegation  of 
Choctaws  arrived  with  the  Mobilians  to  ask  the  French  to  join 
them  in  their  war  against  the  Chickasaw.76  The  traditional 
enmity  between  the  Choctaw,  the  most  numerous  nation  of 
southwestern  Indians,  and  the  Chickasaw,  the  most  aggressive, 
was  clearly  the  raison  d’etre  of  the  French-Choctaw  alliance.  In 
the  event,  this  chronic  feud  proved  fatal  to  Iberville’s  program 
of  pacification.  But  in  1702  the  Choctaw  and  the  Chickasaw  were 
reconciled  at  a  notable  congress  at  Mobile.  On  the  eve  of  the 
Anglo-French  war  Iberville’s  Indian  policy  seemed  crowned 
with  success. 

The  agent  who  brought  these  warring  Indians  together  at 
Mobile  was  the  devoted  Tonti.  On  February  8,  1702,  with  ten 
picked  men  Tonti  set  out  upon  his  delicate  errand.77  On  March 
25  he  returned  with  four  Choctaw  chiefs  and  three  chiefs  and 
four  other  principal  men  of  the  Chickasaw.  The  following  day 
presents  were  distributed,  and  with  Bienville  as  interpreter, 
Iberville  harangued  the  Indian  council.  By  his  own  account,  he 
sought  to  persuade  the  two  tribes  that  a  general  peace  was  to 
their  own  interest.  In  the  eight  or  ten  years  that  intertribal 
warfare  had  continued  at  the  solicitation  of  the  English,  the 
Chickasaw,  he  declared,  had  made  over  five  hundred  prisoners 
and  killed  more  than  eighteen  hundred  Choctaw;  and  the 
Chickasaw  themselves  had  lost  some  eight  hundred  dead  in 
their  raids.  With  the  Choctaw  they  should  realise,  therefore, 
that  the  ultimate  aim  of  the  English  was  to  exhaust  them  by 
wars  in  order  to  seize  their  lands  and  send  them  all  slaves  into 
distant  countries.  The  Chickasaw  must  expel  the  English  traders 
from  their  towns  or  he  would  have  no  peace  or  trade  with  them, 
but  instead  would  arm  the  Choctaw,  the  Mobilians,  the  To- 
homes,  as  he  had  already  begun  to  arm  the  Natchez  and  other 
allies.  Instead  of  restraining  Illinois  attacks,  he  would  spur 
them  on.  But  once  the  English  were  sent  packing  Iberville 
promised  to  build  a  post  in  the  Indian  country  between  the 

76  Ibid.,  pp.  429,  460.  See  Louisiana  Historical  Quarterly,  VIII.  31,  regard¬ 
ing  French  information  at  this  time  of  the  Upper  Creeks  and  the  English 
interest  there. 

76  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  September  16,  1701. 

77  Ibid.,  March,  1702;  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  507.  Tonti’s  route 
was  shown  on  Delisle’s  Carte  de  la  Louisiane  et  du  cours  du  Mississipi, 
1718. 


70 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Choctaw  and  Chickasaw  towns.  There  the  French  would  offer 
them  trade,  not  for  slaves,  but  for  the  skins  of  deer  and  buffalo. 

It  was  probably  Iberville’s  promise  of  trade  rather  than 
'  his  eloquent  picture  of  the  blessings  of  peace  that  brought  the 
Chickasaw  to  agree  to  live  amicably  with  the  Choctaw  and  to 
eject  the  Carolinians.  Iberville  then  promised  to  forbid  his 
allies  to  carry  on  war  against  them  and  to  secure  the  return  of 
captives  from  the  Illinois.  In  return  he  demanded  that  they 
persuade  the  Creeks  to  trade  at  the  French  fort  and  to  give  no 
heed  to  the  English,  under  threat  to  release  the  tomahawks  of 
the  Apalache,  of  which  he  claimed  to  be  master.  When  Iberville 
had  taken  a  census  of  the  tribes  the  congress  was  dismissed, 
and  the  Indians  returned  to  their  towns,  ‘tres  contens,’  Iberville 
believed,  ‘et  disposes  a  vivre  tous  en  paix.’78 

Shortly  the  truce  was  extended  to  other  tribes,  notably  the 
Illinois  and  the  Alabamas,  nearest  of  the  Upper  Creek  towns. 
Three  Canadians  were  sent  to  the  Illinois  country  to  arrest  the 
hatchet  against  the  Chickasaw,  and  also  against  the  Shawnee, 
whom  Iberville,  in  view  of  overtures  to  Bellefeuille,  hoped  to 
draw  down  to  the  Mississippi  or  to  Mobile.79  In  May,  1702, 
eight  Alabama  chiefs  came  in  and  took  the  peace  talk  at  Mo¬ 
bile.80  To  the  grand  vicar  of  Quebec  at  the  Tamaroas  and  to 
the  superior  of  the  Jesuits,  Iberville  appealed  for  missionaries 
to  the  Choctaw  and  Chickasaw.  At  the  same  time  he  deputed 
Father  Davion  and  other  priests  of  the  lower  Mississippi  to 
spread  the  news  of  the  peace  among  the  river  tribes.  As  a 
further  measure,  already  contemplated,  he  sent  a  youth,  ‘le  petit 
Saint-Michel,’  to  live  among  the  Chickasaw  and  learn  their 
language.81  So  effective  did  these  measures  appear  that  on  his 
return  to  France  Iberville  reported:  ‘La  paix  est  conclue  et  a 
reste  entre  eux.’82  And  Nicolas  de  la  Salle  declared:  ‘Je  puis 
dire  que  la  colonie  naissante  a  toute  1  ’obligation  de  cette  union 
a  M.  d’Iberville  et  a  M.  de  Tonty,  qui  ont  agi  dans  cette  nego- 
ciation  en  hommes  bien  intentionnes  pour  la  reussite  d’un  des 
plus  fameux  establissements  que  le  Roy  ait  par  la  suite.’83 

7SMargry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  516-21. 

Ibid.,  p.  520. 

80  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  May  12,  1702. 

81  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  480,  521. 

“  Ibid.,  p.  630. 

83  Ibid.,  pp.  531  f. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Southern  Frontier  in  Queen  Anne’s  War 

In  America,  as  in  Europe,  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  a  rupture  seemed  inevitable  between  England  and  the 
Bourbon  monarchies.  For  thirty  years  Spaniards  and  English¬ 
men  had  been  jealous  and  quarrelsome  neighbors  in  the  South, 
and  Spanish  dominion  had  steadily  dwindled.  But  the  old  con¬ 
flicts  on  the  Guale  border  were  now  subordinated  to  a  greater 
contest  for  the  hegemony  of  the  interior,  in  which  for  some 
years  Florida  played  a  minor  role.  The  founding  of  Louisiana, 
and  the  southwestward  advance  of  the  Carolinians,  had  created 
a  new  zone  of  Anglo-French  rivalry  for  the  Indian  trade.  The 
obscure  struggles  of  Indian  traders  and  their  savage  partizans 
on  the  farthest  frontier  of  the  English  colonies  in  North 
America  made  but  small  stir  in  a  world  absorbed  in  the  momen¬ 
tous  issue  of  the  Spanish  Succession.  A  few  men  only  under¬ 
stood  that  these  incidents  foreshadowed  a  contest  for  the  richest 
prize  of  ‘imperial’  ambition  in  America :  the  heart  of  the  conti¬ 
nent.  It  was  on  the  southern  frontier  that  the  conflict  was  first 
clearly  joined  for  the  control  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi. 

Iberville,  for  one,  had  foreseen  the  impending  struggle,  and 
had  drawn  up  a  comprehensive  frontier  policy  for  Louisiana. 
In  1702  his  scheme  of  pacification  in  the  Southwest  seemed 
completely  successful.  But  his  purpose  was  not  merely  de¬ 
fensive.  He  looked  beyond  the  immediate  security  of  the  new 
colony  to  the  expansion  of  French  interest  eastward,  ‘au  cote 
de  Caroline,’  and  to  cooperation  with  Florida  to  strike  at  the 
flank  of  the  English  trading  advance.  Indeed,  the  conquest  of 
Carolina,  and  in  the  sequel  of  Virginia,  Maryland,  and  even 
New  York,  was  already  in  view.  This  was  the  subject  of  an 
extraordinary  ‘Projet  sur  la  Caroline’  submitted  to  the  ministry 
in  1702  with  Iberville’s  approving  annotations.  Spanish  weak¬ 
ness  and  the  successful  aggression  of  the  Carolina  traders 
foreshadowed  the  speedy  loss  of  all  Florida.  Supreme  among 
the  inland  tribes,  and  possibly  dominating  the  Havana  passage 
from  the  Baye  de  Carlos  (Tampa  Bay),  the  English  would 
menace  Louisiana.  Franco-Spanish  cooperation  was  therefore 

[71] 


72 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


imperative:  Carolina  must  be  destroyed.  A  joint  expedition  by 
land  and  sea  was  proposed.  While  six  hundred  Spanish  troops 
from  St.  Augustine,  Havana,  and  Vera  Cruz,  joined  by  three 
hundred  French  and  one  hundred  Canadians,  attacked  Charles 
Town  fort,  fifteen  hundred  Spanish  Indians,  armed  with 
French  guns,  should  create  a  diversion  on  the  Carolina  fron¬ 
tiers.  Success  would  mean  that  the  Florida  boundary  would  be 
extended  northward  to  the  ‘river  of  Virginia,’  but  in  com¬ 
pensation  Pensacola  should  be  ceded  to  France.  Louisiana,  too, 
would  profit  by  the  plunder  of  the  English  province,  sharing 
the  cattle  and  slaves  of  the  abandoned  plantations  with  their 
allies.  For  the  English  settlers  would  be  returned  to  England, 
and  the  French  Huguenots,  deprived  of  their  leaders,  carried 
to  Mobile  and  won  back  to  the  Catholic  faith.  The  conquest  of 
Carolina,  moreover,  would  pave  the  way  for  a  French  alliance 
with  the  Creeks,  and  for  greater  victories.  By  1704  the  new 
Indian  league  should  be  strong  enough  to  make  possible  a  grand 
encircling  movement  against  the  English  seaboard  colonies, 
this  time  a  French  enterprise  solely,  for  the  profit  only  of 
France.  Nor  was  it  too  soon  to  put  the  larger  project  in  train. 
Le  Sueur  should  be  sent  up  the  Mississippi  to  make  peace  be¬ 
tween  the  Sioux  and  the  Illinois,  and  to  remove  the  latter  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Ohio.  (Elsewhere  Iberville  outlined  a  grandi¬ 
ose  scheme  for  the  rearrangement  of  the  tribes,  including  the 
Shawnee  and  the  Cherokee,  to  expose  the  southern  flank  of  the 
English  colonies.)  Two  or  three  thousand  Sioux  and  Illinois, 
four  thousand  Choctaw,  Chickasaw,  and  Mobilians,  joined  with 
the  converted  Upper  Creeks  (Conchaques)  would  make  a  suf¬ 
ficient  force  of  auxiliaries,  it  was  predicted,  to  enable  four  or 
five  hundred  French  and  Canadians  to  carry  through  the  con¬ 
quest  of  Virginia.  With  further  aid  from  the  western  Indians 
the  frontier  invasions  might  be  extended  victoriously  as  far  as 
New  York.  But  the  first,  essential  step  was  the  campaign  of 
1702  against  Carolina.1 

It  was,  of  course,  one  thing  to  predict  on  paper  the  suc¬ 
cessive  stages  in  the  subjugation  of  the  southern  frontier  and 
of  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  It  was  another  thing,  beyond  the 

1 ‘Projet  sur  la  Caroline’  in  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  Cu,  A  20,  f.  224  el  seq.  See 
also  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  520. 


/ 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


73 


powers  of  persuasion  of  Iberville  and  his  friends,  to  win  sup¬ 
port  from  the  ministry,  the  complete  cooperation  of  an  ally 
chronically  suspicious  of  all  intrusions  into  the  Gulf  area,  and 
the  conversion  of  the  Indian  who  had  learned  to  look  to  Charles 
Town  ‘pour  avoir  les  choses  qui  leur  sont  necessaire,  et  a  bon 
marche.’  Nevertheless  the  projet  was  notable  for  its  clear  defi¬ 
nition  of  the  ultimate  aims  of  both  the  major  participants  in 
the  struggle  which  was  beginning  in  the  old  Southwest.  The 
analysis  of  Carolinian  policy  could  be  documented  at  almost 
every  point  from  the  declarations  of  Joseph  Blake  and  James 
Moore.  And  here,  could  the  Carolinians  have  read  it,  was  full 
confirmation  of  that  encircling  policy  of  France  in  North 
America  which  for  a  generation  and  more  to  come  was  the 
dread  of  English  provincial  leaders  in  the  South,  to  which  they 
shaped  their  own  western  policy  and  at  length  the  frontier 
policy  of  the  colonial  authorities  in  England. 

Short  of  this  program  of  encirclement  the  efforts  of  Iber¬ 
ville  soon  awakened  apprehensions  at  Charles  Town,  and  pro¬ 
voked  a  counter-offensive.  In  a  memoir  of  June,  1702, 2  Iber¬ 
ville  analysed  the  French  advantages  for  rivalling  the  English 
traders  among  the  Creek  Indians,  notably  the  ease  of  water- 
transport  from  Mobile.  Franco-Spanish  rivalry  on  the  eastern 
Gulf  coast,  in  Iberville’s  view,  must  be  subordinated  to  the 
common  task  of  checking  the  advance  of  the  Carolinians.  Even 
while  engaged  in  furnishing  Ponchartrain  with  arguments  for 
the  cession  of  Pensacola  to  France,  he  recognised  the  necessity 
of  supporting  the  feeble  establishments  of  the  Bourbon  ally. 
In  the  next  war,  he  declared,  St.  Augustine,  Apalache,  Pensa¬ 
cola  would  lie  at  the  mercy  of  the  English.  He  therefore  helped 
to  secure  supplies  for  the  starving  garrison  at  Pensacola,  and 
sought  earnestly  to  link  Florida  and  Louisiana  in  effective  re¬ 
sistance  to  English  intrusions.  To  the  governor  of  Pensacola 
he  wrote  in  January,  1702,  strongly  advising  that  the  Apalache 
be  engaged  to  oppose  the  progress  of  the  English  and  theii 
allies.  Men,  provisions,  munitions,  everything  that  he  had,  he 
offered  for  this  essential  service.3 

Apart  from  Iberville’s  preaching  of  a  more  aggressive 

2  Ibid.,  p.  594. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  546-7,  551,  579. 


74 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


border  strategy,  the  Spanish  had  received  ample  provocation 
in  recent  raids  of  the  Creeks  and  the  Carolina  slave-dealers. 
An  incursion  into  Apalache  in  1701,  and  in  May,  1702,  the 
destruction  of  the  Timucuan  mission  of  Santa  Fe  de  Toloco, 
clamored  for  revenge.4  Governor  Zuniga  in  the  summer  of 
1702  sent  out  a  punitive  force  of  Spanish  and  Apalache  Indians 
more  than  eight  hundred  strong,  under  the  command  of  Cap¬ 
tain  Uriza.  Iberville  had  advance  knowledge  of  the  campaign 
and  he  doubted  its  success.  The  Apalache  were  still  bow-and- 
arrow  Indians,  the  Creeks  had  firearms  from  South  Carolina. 
The  Frenchman’s  forebodings  were  fully  justified.  Anthony 
Dodsworth  and  the  other  Carolina  traders  at  Coweta  learned 
from  the  Indians  of  the  Spanish  march,  marshalled  some  five 
hundred  Creeks,  and  advanced  at  their  head  to  the  Flint  River. 
There,  by  a  clever  strategem,  they  completely  routed  the  in¬ 
vaders.5 

More  was  involved  in  this  frontier  skirmish,  the  prelude 
to  Queen  Anne’s  War  on  the  southern  frontier,  than  in  the 
familiar  broils  between  South  Carolina  and  Florida.  In  effect  it 
was  the  first  blow  struck  by  the  English  for  the  control  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley.  Certainly  no  doubt  existed  in  the  mind  of 
Governor  James  Moore  of  Carolina  that  the  unity  of  policy 
which  Iberville  was  seeking  to  attain  was  a  fact  with  which 
the  English  must  henceforth  reckon. 

By  1702  the  first  panic  at  Charles  Town  over  the  establish¬ 
ment  of  Louisiana  had  somewhat  subsided.  But  the  approach 
of  war,  and  the  overtures  of  Iberville  to  the  Creeks  raised  new 
fears.  In  1701  Col.  Stephen  Bull  was  sent  on  a  special  mission 
to  the  Talapoosas.6  In  August  of  that  year  Governor  Moore 
warned  the  Commons  House  that  whether  there  was  ‘warr  or 
peace  we  are  sure  to  be  always  in  danger  and  under  the  trouble 
and  charge  of  keeping  out  guards,  even  in  time  of  Peace,  so 
long  as  those  French  live  so  near  us.  To  put  you  in  mind  of  the 
French  of  Canada’s  neighborhood  to  the  Inhabitants  of  New 

4  Ibid.,  p.  595 ;  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  p.  58. 

0  Ibid.,  pp.  58-9;  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  595;  Carroll  (ed.), 
Collections,  II.  351.  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7,  has  crossed  swords  near 
the  Flint  River,  and  the  legend,  ‘Battel  in  1702  where  600  Spanish  Indians 
were  killed  or  taken  by  the  Carolinians.’ 

0  JCHA,  August  16,  27,  1701. 


75 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 

England  is  to  say  enough  on  the  subject.’7  Early  in  1702  he 
urged  ‘that  you  think  of  some  way  to  prevent  the  Tallabooses 
and  other  Indians  now  our  friends  their  trade  and  acquaintance 
with  the  French  till  some  way  be  found  to  secure  us  from  the 
mischiefs  and  dangers  which  that  trade  and  acquaintance  will 
bring  us.’8  Already  a  conference  committee  on  Indian  affairs 
had  defined  the  normal  Indian  policy  of  the  province,  advising 
that  ‘the  Tallabooses  and  other  Friendly  Indians  be  not  Dis¬ 
courag’d  from  making  warr  upon  those  Indians  that  are  our 
and  their  Enemies.’9  Partly  as  a  result  of  the  French  threat, 
the  assembly  passed  the  first  act  regulating  the  Indian  trade.10 
By  measures  of  this  sort,  and  by  the  persistent  activity  of  the 
traders,  the  Upper  Creek  Indians  were  brought  in  1703  to  an 
open  breach  with  Louisiana. 

Meanwhile,  Moore  was  developing  his  project  for  striking 
at  the  French  through  Florida.  In  August,  1702,  on  the  strength 
of  unofficial  intelligence  of  the  outbreak  of  war  in  Europe,  he 
urged  an  immediate  offensive  against  Florida.  ‘The  Takeing  of 
St.  Augustine  before  it  be  Strengthened  with  French  forses,’ 
he  declared  to  the  hesitant  assembly,  ‘opens  to  us  an  easie  and 
plaine  way  to  Remove  the  French  (a  no  less  dangerous  Enemy 
in  time  of  peace  then  Warr)  from  their  Settlement  on  the 
South  (sic)  Side  of  the  Bay  of  Apalatia.’  By  such  exploits  ‘the 
fronteere  Collony  of  all  her  Majesties  Plantations  on  the  Maine 
in  America’  might  hope  to  win  royal  aid  and  protection.11  The 
St.  Augustine  expedition  of  1702  had,  then,  its  true  setting  in 
the  international  contest  for  the  region  of  the  Gulf  and  the 
Mississippi,  a  fact  which  was  clearly  understood  in  Louisiana 
and  even  in  France.  Moore’s  vociferous  enemies  in  Carolina, 
who  stoutly  opposed  the  campaign,  later  villified  it  as  a  misera¬ 
ble  plundering  and  slave-catching  adventure.  To  be  sure,  the 
affair  and  its  sequel,  the  Apalache  campaign,  were  not  un¬ 
touched  by  scandal.  Perhaps  it  was  true  that  the  governor  and 

7  Ibid.,  August  14,  1701. 

8  Ibid.,  January  14,  April  2,  1702. 

8  Ibid.,  August  15,  1701. 

10  See  below,  p.  144. 

llJCHA,  August  20,  1702.  At  this  time  the  declaration  of  war,  though 
communicated  by  the  Proprietors  on  May  8,  had  not,  apparently,  been  re¬ 
ceived.  C.O.  5:289,  p.  91;  1290,  p.  222;  Commissions  and  Instructions,  1685- 
1715,  pp.  153-4. 


76 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


his  officers  were  wont  to  dine  thereafter  off  the  church  plate 
of  St.  Augustine,  and  that  Spanish  Indians  labored  on  Moore’s 
plantations.  Moore  was  ambitious,  needy,  the  head  of  a  large 
family,  but  he  was  also  a  typical  Anglo-American  expan¬ 
sionist.12 

So  late  as  August  22  the  assembly  refused  to  authorize  the 
governor  to  proclaim  the  war.13  But  under  pressure  from 
Moore  an  act  was  passed,  September  10,  to  equip  the  expedi¬ 
tion.14  Five  hundred  Carolinians  and  some  three  hundred  In¬ 
dians  comprised  the  army  which  set  out  in  fourteen  small  ships 
from  Port  Royal.  Moore  commanded,  and  under  him  Colonel 
Robert  Daniel.  The  remaining  Spanish  missions  north  of  San 
Juan  were  soon  swept  away.  The  Yoa  now  migrated  north¬ 
ward  to  the  ‘Indian  Land.’  The  ruin  of  Guale  was  complete.  A 
tight  embargo  had  been  imposed  to  keep  news  of  the  invasion 
from  the  Spaniards.  But  one  of  the  smaller  vessels  lost  com¬ 
pany,  and  the  presidio  had  two  days’  warning.  October  27  the 
fleet  arrived  at  St.  Augustine,  and  two  days  later  Colonel 
Daniel  ‘made  himself  Master  of  the  Towne.’  The  Carolinians 
marvelled  at  the  size  of  the  churches  and  the  ‘abbey,’  ‘large 
enouf  to  entertaine  Seven  or  Eight  hundred  men,’  but  they 
marvelled  more  at  the  unexpected  strength  of  the  moated 
castle.  Against  this  regular  bastioned  fortification  the  Carolinian 
battery  of  four  guns  made  a  pitiful  showing.  Hope  of  success 
lay  in  starving  out  the  enemy — ‘one  thousand  Eaters’  were  re¬ 
ported  in  the  fort — or  in  securing  ordnance  before  Spanish 
aid  could  come  from  Havana.  But  an  eight  weeks’  siege 
sapped  the  morale  of  the  undisciplined  army  of  frontiersmen. 
Mortars  and  ammunition  sought  in  Jamaica  had  not  come; 
Colonel  Daniel  had  sailed  to  New  York  for  aid.  Moore  was 
hard  put  to  it  to  hold  his  grumbling  force  together.  At  this 
juncture  appeared  off  the  bar  two  Spanish  men-of-war,  be¬ 
lieved  to  rate  thirty  or  forty  guns  each,  with  a  brigantine  and 
a  sloop  bringing  relief  from  Havana.  The  Carolina  fleet  of 

“For  hostile  criticism  of  the  Florida  campaigns  see  John  Ash,  The 
Present  State  of  Affairs  in  Carolina  (1706?),  p.  30,  reprinted  in  Salley  (ed.) 
Narratives,  p.  272 ;  and  Colleton  county  representation,  in  Rivers,  Sketch, 
Appendix,  p.  456. 

13  JCHA,  August  22,  1702. 

“Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  189  (act  not  extant). 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


77 


eight  little  vessels,  ranging  from  seventy  tons  burden  to  less 
than  fifty,  was  bottled  up.  Three  days  longer  the  siege  was 
maintained.  Then  Moore  set  fire  to  his  ships  and  to  the  town 
and  its  churches,  and  retreated  overland  sixty  miles  to  his 
periagoes.  The  failure,  Robert  Quary  was  convinced,  was  due 
to  no  lack  of  troops  or  of  courage,  but  solely  to  the  want  of  one 
or  two  men-of-war  and  a  few  bombs.  South  Carolina  was  sad¬ 
dled  with  a  debt  of  over  eight  thousand  pounds,  and  entered 
upon  the  evil  course  of  paper-money  issues.  But  the  casualties 
had  been  trifling,  and  plans  were  soon  discussed  with  Admiral 
Whetstone  for  a  second  expedition,  this  time  with  adequate 
naval  assistance.15 

In  a  letter  to  Whetstone  of  January  28,  1703,16  the  gov¬ 
ernor  and  assembly  outlined  the  larger  objects  of  their  pro¬ 
gram  : 

If  it  Pleaseth  God  to  Give  us  Success,  it  is  a  Matter  of  that  Great 
Consequence  that  if  to  that  Wee  ad  the  conquest  of  a  small  Span¬ 
ish  Town  called  Pancicola,  and  a  new  french  Colony.  .  .  Both, 
Sea  Port  Towns.  .  .  It  will  make  her  Majestie  Absolute  and 
Soveraigne  Lady  of  all  the  Maine  as  farr  as  the  River  Mischisipi, 
which  if  effected  the  Colony  of  Carolina  will  be  of  the  Greatest 
Vallue  to  the  Crown  of  England  of  any  of  her  Majesties  Planta¬ 
tions  on  the  Maine  except  Virginia  by  ading  a  Great  Revenue  to 
the  Crown,  for  one  halfe  of  all  the  Canadian  Trade  for  furrs  and 
Skinns  must  necessarily  come  this  way,  besides  a  vast  Trade  of 
Furrs  and  Skinns  extended  as  far  as  the  above  mentioned  River, 
Mischisipi,  which  is  now  interrupted  by  those  Two  little  Towns, 
.  .  .  and  the  Best  Service  any  of  her  Majesties  Subjects  can  do 
the  Crowne  is  to  add  to  Its  Dominion  and  Revenue. 

In  April,  1703,  and  again  in  June,  Colonel  Robert  Quary, 
whose  former  residence  in  South  Carolina  had  familiarized 
him  with  the  problems  and  the  point  of  view  of  the  southern 
frontier,  wrote  home  emphasizing  in  similar  fashion  the  rela- 

15  The  printed  accounts  of  this  expedition,  contemporary  and  later,  are 
cited  by  me  in  AHR,  XXIV.  386  note;  and  by  Bolton  and  Ross  in  The  De¬ 
batable  Land,  p.  60  note.  The  present  account  is  largely  based  upon  Moore 
and  Daniel  to  the  council,  November  9,  1702  (C.O.  5:382,  no.  8,  i)  ;  council 
to  [Secretary],  November  26,  1702  (ibid.,  no.  8)  ;  Michael  Cole,  shipmaster, 
to  William  Blaythwayt,  Charles  Town,  December  22,  1702  (C.O.  5:306,  no. 
2);  Quary  to  Board  of  Trade,  December  7,  1702  (C.O.  323:3,  E  54); 
JCHA,  1702-1703,  passim.  For  evidences  of  French  alarm,  see  Arch.  Nat., 
Marine,  B2,  167,  f.  523;  168,  f.  63 ;  177,  f.  494. 

16  JCHA,  January  28,  1702/3. 


78 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


tion  of  the  Florida  campaign  to  the  larger  question  of  conti¬ 
nental  dominion.  The  reduction  of  Florida  would,  he  believed, 
‘put  a  stop  to  the  French  designs  who  are  endeavouring  from 
Canada,  to  secure  the  Inland  parts  of  the  whole  Maine.’17 

To  the  French,  meanwhile,  the  significance,  for  them,  of 
these  English  threats  to  Florida  seemed  quite  as  clear.  The 
French  ministry  was  considering  a  joint  expedition  to  recap¬ 
ture  St.  Augustine  when  the  news  came  that  the  English  had 
retreated — so  Cardinal  d’Estrees,  ambassador  to  Spain,  was  ap¬ 
prised.  His  despatch  from  Paris  was  loud  in  praise  of  Zuniga’s 
valor;  he  was  instructed  to  support  his  candidacy  for  promo¬ 
tion  to  the  governorship  of  Cartagena,  and  to  back  Don  Fran¬ 
cisco  Martin  of  Pensacola  for  his  place,  for  Martin  had  won 
the  confidence  of  Iberville.  Florida,  clearly,  was  regarded  in 
France  as  the  first  line  of  defense  for  Louisiana.171 

Quary  and  Moore  saw  farther  into  the  future  of  the  inter¬ 
colonial  conflict  than  most  of  their  English  contemporaries. 
Moore  was  discredited  by  the  St.  Augustine  fiasco ;  he  was  suc¬ 
ceeded  by  a  capable  but  unimaginative  soldier,  whose  chief  in¬ 
terest  in  frontier  policy  was  apparently  to  secure  his  perquisites 
in  presents  from  the  chiefs.  In  1703,  however,  Sir  Nathaniel 
Johnson  secured  the  assent  of  the  assembly  to  a  blow  at  the 
Spanish  interest  which  reaped  a  larger  measure  of  success 
than  any  other  purely  military  measure  of  the  war.  Like  the 
St.  Augustine  expedition,  the  Apalache  campaign  was  directed 
against  Louisiana  as  well  as  Florida. 

In  1702  and  1703  French  overtures  to  the  Alabama  and 
Talapoosa,  and  the  Franco-Spanish  projects  for  employing  the 
Apalache  against  the  Lower  Creeks,  awakened  anxiety  at 
Charles  Town  for  the  stability  of  the  provincial  Indian  system. 
A  general  movement  northward  of  the  Creek  tribes  who  formed 
the  bulwark  of  Carolina  seemed  impending.  How  to  protect 
these  Indians  and  confirm  them  in  the  places  in  which  they 
lived  repeatedly  engaged  the  attention  of  the  government.18 
Soon  after  the  collapse  of  the  attack  upon  St.  Augustine  a 
party  of  Creeks  and  English  made  an  incursion  into  the  Apa- 

17  B.M.  Add.  MSS  11759,  f.  169;  Docs.  rel.  to  Col.  Hist.  N.  Y.,  IV.  1048. 

17a  Arch.  Nat.,  Marine,  B2,  168,  f.  63. 

18  JCHA,  January  14,  1702;  January  15,  16,  19,  20,  February  3,  September 
2,  1703. 


79 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 

lache  country,  ravishing  the  missions  of  San  Jose  de  Ocuia, 
Patali,  and  San  Francisco.19  With  Johnson’s  support  Moore 
now  brought  forward  a  project  for  the  elimination  of  the 
Apalache.  Early  in  September  Johnson  hastily  summoned  the 
assembly,  with  a  warning  that  the  Creeks  were  threatened  by  a 
combined  Spanish  and  French  offensive.  The  Commons  inter¬ 
rogated  the  Indian  traders,  Dodsworth,  Welch,  William  Steed, 
and  others,  but,  questioning  the  imminence  of  the  danger,  hesi¬ 
tated  to  do  more  than  send  a  present  to  the  Creeks.  But  they  were 
convinced  when  they  heard  an  eye-witness’s  account  of  French 
colonization  in  Louisiana.  On  September  7  the  assembly  re¬ 
quested  Johnson  to  send  Moore  ‘to  the  Assistance  of  the  Cowe- 
taw  and  other  our  friendly  Indians,  and  to  attacque  the  Appa- 
laches.’  The  treasury  was  empty,  and  the  Commons  refused 
funds  even  to  supply  the  army  with  horses.  Moreover,  they  laid 
a  serious  restriction  upon  a  campaign  which  must  pay  its  way 
out  of  slaves  and  plunder,  when  they  urged  that  Moore  be  in¬ 
structed  ‘to  endeavour  to  gain  [by]  all  peaceable  means  if 
possible  the  Appalaches  to  our  interest  (as  we  are  inform’d 
they  are  thereunto  inclined).’20 

By  his  own  interest,  and  at  his  own  expense,  Moore  got  to¬ 
gether  at  Okmulgee,  in  December,  an  army  of  fifty  whites  and 
a  thousand  Indians.  On  January  14,  1704,  he  fell  upon  Ayu- 
bale,  ‘the  strongest  fort  in  Apalache.’  For  nine  hours  Father 
Miranda  and  his  neophytes  put  up  a  vigorous  defense.  The 
Creeks,  meanwhile,  were  raiding  the  plantations,  and  only  a 
handful  took  part  in  the  two  assaults.  ‘I  never  see  or  hear  of  a 
stouter  or  braver  thing  done,’  wrote  Moore,  ‘than  the  storming 
of  the  fort.’  Next  day  he  was  attacked  in  the  field  by  Captain 
Ruiz  Mexia,  commander  of  San  Luis  fort  and  lieutenant  of 
Apalache.  Mexia  had  assembled  thirty  mounted  soldiers  and 
four  hundred  Indians ;  in  his  company  was  the  devoted  Father 
Juan  de  Parga,  whose  harangue  to  his  charges  aroused  them  to 
fighting  pitch  against  the  heretics.  Parga  insisted  on  keeping 
‘his  children’  company  even  to  death.  But  the  Spaniards  were 
routed,  Parga  fell  in  battle,  Mexia  was  wounded  and  captured. 

19  Zuniga  to  the  King,  March  30/April  10,  1704  (transcript  in  New  York 
Historical  Society)  ;  Swanton,  Earlv  History,  p.  122. 

30  JCHA,  September  2,  3,  4,  6,  7,  15,  17,  1703. 


80 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


After  this  victory  Moore  was  unable  to  restrain  his  savage 
allies,  who  subjected  a  number  of  the  prisoners  to  the  tortures 
of  the  stake.  The  invaders  thereafter  marched  through  Apa- 
lache,  taking  one  fortified  village  after  another,  until  the  rich 
province  with  its  flourishing  missions  was  almost  completely 
ravaged  and  subdued.  Five  towns  surrendered  unconditionally ; 
and  the  cacique  of  Ybithachucu  compounded  for  peace,  offer¬ 
ing  the  church  plate  and  provisions.  Moore  did  not  attempt  the 
fort  of  San  Luis,  and  the  Indians  of  one  other  town  made 
good  their  escape.  Besides  many  Indians  killed  in  battle,  or 
captured  and  carried  away  as  slaves  (325  men,  by  Moore’s 
report,  and  a  much  greater  number  of  women  and  children) 
some  three  hundred  men  and  a  thousand  women  and  children 
whose  chiefs  had  submitted  were  removed  as  free  Indians  to 
the  neighborhood  of  Savannah  Town,  to  strengthen  the  im¬ 
mediate  frontier  of  South  Carolina.  ‘All  of  which,’  Moore 
boasted  to  the  Proprietors,  ‘I  have  done  with  the  loss  of  4 
whites  and  15  Indians,  and  without  one  Penny  charge  to  the 
Publick.  Before  this  Expedition,’  he  added,  ‘we  were  more 
afraid  of  the  Spaniards  of  Apalatchee  and  their  Indians  in 
Conjunction  with  the  French  of  Mississippi,  and  their  Indians, 
doing  us  Harm  by  Land,  than  of  any  Forces  of  the  Enemy  by 
Sea.  This  has  wholly  disabled  them  from  attempting  anything 
against  Us  by  Land.’21 

The  quantities  of  slaves  and  plunder  which  Moore’s  army 
had  brought  from  Apalache  tempted  other  leaders,  though  ‘the 
whole  strength’  of  the  province  Moore  now  reckoned  at  no 
more  than  three  hundred  Indians.  A  veteran  of  these  cam- 

31  Moore  to  Johnson,  ‘in  the  woods,’  April  16,  1704,  in  ‘Spanish  Papers,' 
MSS,  Library  of  Congress,  VI,  892-6:  printed,  with  some  omissions  and 
inaccuracies,  in  Boston  News  Letter,  May  1,  1704,  and  reprinted  in  Carroll 
(ed.),  Collections,  II.  574-6;  Moore  to  Proprietors,  same  date,  in  ‘Spanish 
Papers,’  VI.  888;  Zuniga  to  the  King,  March  30/April  10,  1704,  and  extract, 
translated,  in  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  122  f. ;  ‘Extractos  de  una  infor- 
macion  fecha  en  San  Agustin,’  June  9,  1705  (transcript,  New  York  Historical 
Society).  The  French  were  greatly  disturbed  by  this  further  evidence  of 
an  English  push  towards  Louisiana,  and  began  to  entertain  projects  for 
destroying  Carolina.  See  Arch.  Nat.,  Marine,  B2,  177,  f.  494;  183,  f.  47; 
and  Affaires  etrangeres,  Espagne,  153,  f.  97.  Bienville’s  report  is  summar¬ 
ized  in  Canadian  Archives  Report  for  1905,  I.  448;  see  also  Swanton,  Early 
History,  p.  123;  South  Carolina  assembly  report,  1741,  in  Carroll  (ed.j. 
Collections.  II.  352  f.  On  the  settlement  of  the  Apalache  at  Savannah  Town, 
see  JCHA,  April  27,  28,  1704.  Quary’s  enthusiastic  estimate  of  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  this  campaign  is  in  Docs.  rel.  Col.  Hist.  N.  Y.,  IV.  1088  f. 


81 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 

paigns,  Thomas  Nairne,  wrote  in  1705:  ‘We  have  these  two 
.  .  .  past  years  been  intirely  kniving  all  the  Indian  Towns  in 
Florida  which  were  subject  to  the  Spaniards  and  have  even 
accomplished  it.’22  Timucua,  harassed  since  1685,  now  shared 
the  fate  of  Guale  and  Apalache.  The  Timucuan  missions,  San 
Miguel  de  Assile,  San  Matheo,  San  Pedro,  Santa  Fe,  San  Fran¬ 
cisco  and  the  rest,23  stretched  eastward  from  Apalache  along 
the  road  to  St.  Augustine.  ‘Wholly  laid  waste  being  destroyed 
by  the  Carolinians,  1706,’  was  the  legend  printed  across  this 
region  on  an  early  official  map.  ‘Tocobogga  Indians,  Destroyed 
1709’  was  the  similar  record  of  an  incursion  on  the  west  coast, 
south  of  Apalache.24  In  1708  John  Barnwell  again  traversed 
Timucua,  and  also  ascended  the  St.  John’s.25  That  river,  in¬ 
deed,  became  a  usual  route  for  slave-catching  raids  far  into  the 
interior.  The  course  of  ‘an  Expedition  in  Florida  Neck,  by 
thirty-three  Iamasee  Indians  Accompany’d  by  Capt.  T.  Nairn’ 
was  recorded  on  Moll’s  map  of  1720. 26  Nairne  was  probably 
the  anonymous  pamphleteer  who  wrote  in  1710  that  ‘there  re¬ 
mains  not  now,  so  much  as  one  Village  with  ten  Houses  in  it, 
in  all  Florida,  that  is  subject  to  the  Spaniards;  nor  have  they 
any  Houses  or  Cattle  left,  but  such  as  they  can  protect  by  the 
Guns  of  their  Castle  of  St.  Augustine,  that  alone  being  now 
in  their  Hands,  and  which  is  continually  infested  by  the  per¬ 
petual  Incursions  of  the  Indians,  subject  to  this  Province.’27 

On  the  Louisiana  border  as  well  as  in  Florida  the  after- 
math  of  the  Apalache  campaign,  accurately  foreseen  by  French 
leaders,  was  increased  actively  by  the  Carolinians,  secure,  now, 
against  inland  attack.  Already  the  Charles  Town  traders  had 
undermined  the  weakest  prop  of  Iberville’s  structure  of  al¬ 
liances,  the  peace  with  the  Alabamas.  Since  1701  repeated 
efforts  had  been  made  to  offset  French  control  of  the  river-route 

22  S.P.G.  MSS  A,  II,  no.  156.  Of  the  fidelity  of  the  Apalache  to  the 
Spaniards  Nairne  wrote  that  ‘nothing  but  downright  force  brought  them 
over  to  our  side.’  See  also  Nairne  memorial,  July  10,  1708,  in  C.O.  382  (11). 

a  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  322,  339  f. 

21  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7. 

25  Ibid. 

20  Herman  Moll,  A  New  Map  of  the  North  Parts  of  America  claimed  by 
France,  1720;  C.O.  Maps,  Carolina,  3. 

27  A  Letter  from  South  Carolina,  London,  1710,  p.  34.  Compare  the 
Spanish  account  of  these  ravages,  badly  translated,  in  Brooks  (comp.), 
Unwritten  History,  pp.  164-7. 


82 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


to  the  Alabama  and  the  other  Upper  Creek  towns.  In  February, 
1703,  a  Commons  House  committee  ‘to  secure  the  South¬ 
western  Indians  and  the  Yamasees  to  our  Interest’  proposed 
that  one  or  two  ‘Sensible  men’  go  to  the  Talapoosas  and  their 
neighbors  with  presents  and  assurances  of  aid.28  The  governor 
reported  in  April  that  the  ‘Tallibuses  and  Stinking  Linguas  and 
Abecas  our  friends  and  the  most  southerly  Indians  allied  to  us, 
as  well  as  the  Indians  which  by  reason  of  their  being  not  far 
situated  from  the  French  settlement’  should  receive  most  en¬ 
couragement,  had  asked  for  a  drum,  a  stand  of  colors,  and 
the  right  to  buy  ammunition  to  use  against  the  French  and 
Spaniards.29  In  May,  by  a  French  account,  two  Alabama  chiefs 
came  to  Mobile  with  the  false  report  that  the  English  had  re¬ 
tired  from  their  towns  and  the  neighboring  settlements.  There¬ 
upon  Bienville  sent  one  La  Brie  and  four  Canadians  to  purchase 
grain  for  the  Mobile  garrison.  But  the  invitation  was  a  ruse. 
Only  one  of  the  voyageurs  escaped  with  a  broken  head  to  tell 
of  an  ambush  in  which  the  rest  were  slain.  ‘Voila  le  sujet  de  la 
guerre  que  nous  fismes  aux  Alibamons,’  wrote  the  chronicler 
Penicaut.30  For  nine  years  the  war  continued.  Punitive  expedi¬ 
tions,  such  as  one  that  Bienville  headed  in  December,  1703, 
were  of  little  use.  More  effective  were  attacks  by  French  In¬ 
dians  spurred  on  by  liberal  offers  of  rewards  for  scalps  and 
captives.31  Meanwhile,  the  Alabama  war  greatly  facilitated  the 
work  of  the  South  Carolina  traders,  who,  on  this  remote  border, 
advanced  hand  in  hand  their  own  profit  and  the  political  inter¬ 
ests  of  their  province. 

In  August,  1705,  the  alliance  between  South  Carolina  and 
the  Creek  Indians  was  ratified  in  form  at  a  council  held  at 
Coweta  Town.  There  a  treaty,  or,  rather,  an  address  to  Sir 
Nathaniel  Johnson,  was  signed  with  the  marks  of  a  dozen 
‘Kings,  Princes,  Tuskestanagaes,  Istechaugaes,  Generals,  War 
Captains,’  etc.,  of  Coweta,  Okmulgee,  Kasihta,  Tukabahchee, 
Okfuskee,  Alabama,  Kealedji,  and  other  towns  of  the  Upper 

23  JCHA,  February  3,  1702/3. 

29  Ibid.,  April  17,  1703. 

30  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  V.  429;  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique. 
May  3,  24,  1703.  Compare  Nairne  memorial,  July  10,  1708,  C.O.  5:382. 

31  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  December  22,  1703;  November  18,  1704; 
January  21,  1706;  November,  1707.  Penicaut,  in  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes, 
V.  429-32,  435,  483. 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


83 


and  Lower  Creeks.  They  acknowledged  not  merely  their 
‘Hearty  Alliance,’  but  also  their  ‘Subjection’  to  the  Crown  of 
England,  pledging  fidelity  to  the  ‘High  and  Mighty  Ann,  Queen 
of  the  English,  and  to  all  her  Majesties  Governours  of  Caro¬ 
lina.’  ‘All  the  English  Friends  and  Allies  are  in  like  Manner 
ours,  and  all  their  Enemies  are  hereby  Our  declared  Enemies. 
Lastly,  We  do  Assure  your  Honour,  we  will  with  our  Utmost 
Power  Assist  the  English,  and  Endeavour  to  give  a  Total 
Rout  to  all  their  and  our  declared  Enemies,  the  French  and 
Spaniards,  not  suffering  them  to  settle  themselves  hereafter  in 
any  of  Our  Territories  or  Dominions,  nor  within  reach  of  our 
Arms.’  This  extraordinary  document  was  attested  by  Daniel 
Henchman  as  Johnson’s  agent ;  the  interpreters  were  two  In¬ 
dian  traders  and  partizan  leaders,  Captain  John  Musgrove  and 
Captain  John  Jones.32 

The  defection  of  the  Alabama,  and  the  closer  alliance  be¬ 
tween  the  Creeks  and  the  English,  following  closely  the  con¬ 
quest  of  Apalache,  marked  the  second  serious  defeat  for  French 
frontier  policy  as  initiated  by  Iberville.  It  was  soon  followed 
by  another:  the  renewal  of  the  Choctaw-Chickasaw  feud.  That 
the  infant  colony  on  the  Gulf  nevertheless  withstood  the  as¬ 
saults  of  the  Carolinians  and  their  savage  confederates  seems 
to  have  been  due  almost  entirely  to  the  adroit  Indian  manage¬ 
ment  of  Iberville’s  brother  and  successor.  Bienville,  declared 
the  Jesuit,  Father  Gravier,  knew  perfectly  how  to  govern  the 
Indians.33  Through  the  French  youths  whom  he  sent  to  live 
among  them  he  kept  in  touch  with  the  rapidly  shifting  currents 
of  wilderness  politics.  By  flattery,  by  ‘caresses,’  he  made  good 
in  part  the  meagerness  of  French  presents  and  the  poverty  of 
French  trade.  Constantly  he  was  receiving  Indian  embassies  at 
Mobile.  Charmed  by  his  remarkable  talent  for  their  languages, 
and  by  the  tact  which  placed  them  at  his  own  table  in  Fort  St. 
Louis,  little  wonder  that  his  guests  were  convinced  that  the 

32  The  Humble  Submission  of  Several  Kings,  Princes,  Generals,  &c.,  to 
the  Crown  of  England,  London,  1707  (broadside).  One  of  two  copies  in  the 
British  Museum,  a  proof  sheet  with  marginal  corrections,  has  a  note  that  it 
was  ‘communicated  to  the  Benevolent  Society  of  Chyurgeons,  by  a  Member 
of  Theirs  and  the  Royal  Society.’  This  points  towards  Dr.  Coxe.  Five  divi¬ 
sions  of  the  Creek  towns  were  named :  ‘The  Ochase,  Haritaumau  [Alta- 
maha],  Talliboose,  Holbamah  and  Abecau  Nations.’ 

33  Arch.  Nat.,  col.,  C13  A  1,  f.  575.  Cf.  memoire  de  Duclos,  October  25, 
1713,  ibid.,  A  3,  f.  265  et  seq. 


84 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


French  nation  was  the  finest  in  the  world.  Bienville  believed 
the  Indians  naturally  loved  the  French,  that  only  necessity  and 
interest  drew  them  to  the  English.  But  sentiment  alone  is  rarely 
an  efficient  political  motive,  even  in  a  state  of  nature.  At  times 
Bienville’s  skill  was  severely  tested.  The  poverty  of  Louisiana 
played  into  the  hands  of  its  enemies.  Funds  set  aside  for  Indian 
presents  and  trade  had  to  be  used  to  maintain  the  garrisons. 
‘Trop  cher’  was  the  younger  Ponchartrain’s  marginal  comment 
when  Bienville’s  memoirs  urged  that  his  Indians  should  receive 
a  musket  for  every  scalp  they  lifted  from  an  English  Indian. 
Nor  did  the  minister  welcome  the  suggestion  that  a  party  of 
chiefs  be  carried  to  France  to  enhance  their  respect  for  French 
power.34  More  serious  was  the  neglect  to  authorize  the  building 
of  the  post  promised  to  the  Chickasaw  in  1702,  and  impatiently 
demanded  by  the  Indians.  In  this  juncture  the  English,  by  culti¬ 
vating  a  band  of  Chickasaw  settled  among  the  Upper  Creeks, 
and  by  liberal  presents  to  their  kinsmen,  were  again  imperilling 
the  central  object  of  French  policy,  the  pacification  of  the 
southwestern  tribes.35 

In  1704  the  French  learned  that  several  Carolinians,  laden 
with  presents,  had  been  treating  with  the  Chickasaw,  from 
whom  they  bought  a  dozen  Taensa  slaves.36  Early  the  next  year 
came  more  alarming  news :  the  Chickasaw  had  sold  to  the  Eng¬ 
lish  several  families  of  Choctaw,  seized  when  they  came  in 
good  faith  on  a  visit  to  a  Chickasaw  village.  The  Choctaw 
matched  this  treachery  a  little  later  when  they  massacred  a 
band  of  Chickasaw  returning  from  Mobile  under  the  escort  of 
M.  Boisbriant  and  his  Canadians.37  However,  Bienville  man¬ 
aged  to  revive  the  truce,  insisting  as  a  condition  that  the  Eng¬ 
lish  traders  must  go,  and  in  January,  1706,  Choctaw  and 
Chickasaw  again  smoked  the  calumet  together  at  Mobile.38  But 
by  March  the  patched-up  peace  was  definitely  broken  through 

31  Ibid.,  A  1,  ff.  387-96,  514  et  seq.\  A  2,  f.  574;  Canadian  Archives  Re¬ 
port  for  1905,  I.  528. 

36  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  Cu  A  1,  ff.  387-396,  523,  575;  JCHA,  February  3,  1703. 

36  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  October  20,  1704;  Canadian  Archives 
Report  for  1905,  I.  448. 

i  37  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  February,  1705.  Boisbriant  was  acci¬ 
dentally  wounded  in  the  melee. 

38  Ibid.,  April  10,  December  9,  1705;  January  21,  1706;  Arch.  Nat.,  col. 
C“A1,  ff.  574f. 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


85 


the  intervention,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  of  Thomas  Welch. 
The  Chickasaw,  so  the  French  learned,  made  a  night  attack 
upon  a  Choctaw  village,  carrying  off  more  than  one  hundred 
and  fifty  prisoners,39  many  of  whom  probably  found  their  way 
to  the  Charles  Town  slave-market.  The  Choctaw  now  demanded 
arms  and  ammunition  from  Mobile.  This  support  they  re¬ 
ceived;  though  Bienville  still  strove  for  a  general  peace,  he 
could  not  permit  the  destruction  of  that  tribe.  He  thoroughly 
understood  that  the  English  were  striving  by  such  attrition  to 
wear  down  the  Indian  defenses  of  Louisiana.  ‘Les  Anglois  de 
la  Caroline  n’epargnent  rien  pour  faire  detruire  nos  Sauvages 
par  les  leurs,’  was  the  constant  plaint  of  the  officials  of 
Louisiana.40 

Though  the  French  for  several  years  retained  a  party 
among  the  Chickasaw,  English  influence  was  now  paramount. 
The  Chickasaw,  with  their  neighbors  the  Yazoo,  were  added 
to  the  Talapoosa,  the  Alabama  and  the  other  Creek  tribes  whom 
the  English  had  been  using  with  disastrous  effect  in  their  as¬ 
saults  upon  the  allies  of  the  French.  Thus  in  the  autumn  of 
1705  the  Choctaw  had  been  raided  by  a  great  force  of  Caro¬ 
lina  Indians  under  white  leaders,  three  or  four  thousand  war¬ 
riors  according  to  French  account.  The  Choctaw  villages  and 
fields  were  laid  waste,  and  many  prisoners  carried  away.41  A 
petition  of  Thomas  Welch  to  the  Lords  Proprietors  in  1708, 
for  the  return  of  certain  Indian  slaves  seized  by  Governor  John¬ 
son  as  perquisites  of  office,  revealed  the  method  of  organizing 
such  a  raid.  Under  a  commission  from  the  governor,  Welch 
deposed,  he  had  ‘Lede  a  party  consisting  of  five  English,  and 
300  Indians,  against  the  Chacta  Indians  Allies  to  the  French 
and  Enemies  to  the  crown  of  England.’  Welch  had  ‘furnished 
the  said  300  Indians  with  Ammunition  for  this  Enterprise 
upon  a  Contract  that  if  they  had  Success,  they  should  pay 
fifteen  Slaves’  to  him;  he  retained  for  himself  five  slaves  and 

39  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  March  5,  1706.  See  JCHA,  November 
6,  1707,  petition  of  Thomas  Welch  asking  payment  ‘for  the  powder  and 
shott  he  gave  to  the  Checkesaws  when  the  French  was  for  persuading  them 
to  come  over  to  their  alliance.’  The  prime  costs,  £61,  were  allowed. 

40  Quoted  from  Bienville,  August  20,  1709,  in  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13  A  2,  f. 
408,  but  repeated,  with  slight  variations,  by  Cadillac,  Nicolas  La  Salle,  and 
others. 

41  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  January  7,  1706.  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13  A 
1,  f.  509. 


86 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


each  of  his  five  English  followers  received  two  in  the  final  dis¬ 
tribution.42  Among  the  weaker  tribes  a  veritable  reign  of  terror 
was  now  instituted.  In  the  east,  the  assaults  of  the  Creeks  com¬ 
pelled  many  of  the  Apalache,  Tawasa,  and  Chatot  and  other 
Indians  settled  near  the  Apalachicola  River  to  seek  shelter  at 
Mobile.43  North  of  Mobile  the  Tohome  and  Mobilians  were 
also  exposed  to  attack.44  Even  on  the  Mississippi  the  English 
made  their  name  a  dread.  In  1706  the  Taensa  and  Tunica, 
French  Indians,  were  forced  to  remove  nearer  the  mouth  of  the 
river.45  By  such  tactics  the  Carolinians  prepared  for  the  climax 
of  their  offensive.  In  1707  Pensacola  Town  was  burned,  and 
an  elaborate  intrigue  was  set  in  motion  for  the  destruction  of 
Mobile  and  all  Louisiana. 

Meanwhile  the  war  had  been  carried  home  to  Charles 
Town.  Since  1670  the  King  and  the  Council  of  the  Indies  had 
been  repeatedly  besought  by  governors  of  Florida  to  remove 
the  intruders  from  San  Jorge.  But  Guale  was  lost,  then  Apa¬ 
lache,  and  nothing  was  seriously  attempted  until  Queen  Anne’s 
War  gave  the  opportunity  for  an  allied  attack  by  sea.  In  1704 
Zuniga’s  report  of  Carolinian  aggression  had  inspired  orders 
to  his  successor  Arriola,  to  prepare  a  plan  in  concert  with  the 
captain  general  of  Havana  for  the  ‘extermination  of  those 
enemies  and  the  capture  of  Carolina.’40  But  the  initiative  ap¬ 
parently  came  from  the  French,  who  saw  as  clearly  as  Moore 
and  Quary  that  through  Florida  the  English  were  striking  at 
the  French  control  of  the  West.  As  early  as  1702  Iberville  had 
endorsed  a  project  for  a  land  attack  upon  South  Carolina;  in 
March,  1703,  Jerome  Phelypeaux  de  Ponchartrain  agreed  that 
the  St.  Augustine  expedition  menaced  Louisiana  and  that  the 
Carolina  settlements  must  be  destroyed.  After  the  Apalache 
campaign  the  French  ambassador  to  Spain  was  instructed  to 

“Thomas  Welch,  petition  to  Lords  Proprietors,  December  4,  1708  (MS 
in  Huntingdon  Library). 

43  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertcs,  V.  457,  460;  Swanton,  Early  History,  p. 
124. 

44  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13  A  2,  ff.  95,  407. 

45  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  August  25,  October  20,  1706;  Penicaut, 
in  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvcrtes,  V.  483. 

46  See,  for  instance,  instructions  of  June  20,  1671,  and  March  10,  1704; 
also  Zendoya  to  the  King,  March  21,  1672,  in  Brooks  transcripts,  Library 
of  Congress;  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13  A  1,  ff.  445-8;  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvcrtes, 
IV.  622. 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


87 


secure  the  necessary  Spanish  cooperation.  In  August,  1705, 
Iberville  signed  a  contract  with  Louis  for  the  use  of  certain 
royal  ships.47  Rumors  of  the  intended  attack  led  Johnson  to 
fortify  Charles  Town  and  to  secure  a  new  act  for  the  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  militia  and  the  hiring  of  lookouts  on  the  coast.48 
When  the  blow  fell,  therefore,  in  August,  1706,  the  province 
was  adequately  prepared.  The  enemy  fleet  was  composed  of  five 
French  privateers,  reinforced  by  Spanish  troops  from  Havana 
and  St.  Augustine.  The  attack  was  badly  managed.  Though 
yellow  fever  was  raging  in  the  colony,  the  militia  and  the 
friendly  Indians  gave  a  good  account  of  themselves.  The  land¬ 
ing  parties  near  Charles  Town  and  Sewee  were  speedily  re¬ 
pulsed,  some  two  hundred  and  thirty  prisoners  were  taken,  and 
Colonel  William  Rhett  with  an  improvised  fleet  drove  off  the 
French  squadron.49 

At  intervals  during  the  war  other  alarms  of  invasion  were 
raised,  notably  in  1708  and  1709.  These  led  to  a  further  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  provincial  system  of  defense.  Scout-boats 
cruised  from  Stono  to  Port  Royal  and  southward  to  St.  Augus¬ 
tine.50  Special  measures  were  taken  to  incorporate  the  Indians 
into  the  military  organization.  Besides  the  regular  militia,  wrote 
a  Carolinian,  ‘English  Officers  are  appointed  over  the  Indians 
with  whom  we  are  in  Friendship,  who  are  order’d,  with  the 
utmost  Expedition,  to  draw  them  down  to  the  Sea-coast,  upon 
the  first  News  of  an  Allarm.  This,’  he  added,  ‘is  reckon’d  a  very 
considerable  Part  of  our  Strength.’51  Nor  were  these  native 
auxiliaries  composed  only  of  the  Cusabo  and  other  settlement 
Indians.  In  April,  1709,  when  an  attack  was  feared,  prepara- 

17  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C11  A  20,  f.  224;  Marine,  B2,  167,  f.  523;  182,  f.  245; 
183,  ff.  47,  441 ;  187,  f.  518;  B4,  29,  f.  213;  Affaires  etrangeres,  Espagne,  153, 
ff.  97,  365 ;  154,  f.  96 ;  163,  f.  129. 

48  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  227 ;  McCord  (ed. ) ,  Statutes,  IX.  617. 

49  The  official  account  is  in  C.O.  5  :382,  no.  10.  See  narratives  in  Rivers, 
Sketch,  pp.  210-14,  and  McCrady,  S'.  C.  under  the  Prop.  Gov.,  pp.  396-401. 

MAn  act  of  July  5,  1707,  named  Thomas  Nairne  to  appoint  two  watches 
southward.  Six  other  watches  were  provided;  all  employed  whites  and 
Indians.  Warning  guns  were  to  be  set  up  on  Nairne’s  and  other  border 
plantations.  By  later  acts  of  1707  and  1710  the  watches  were  increased  and 
then  reduced.  A  law  of  December  18,  1713,  established  two  scout-boats,  one 
to  cruise  from  Port  Royal  to  St.  Augustine,  manned  by  two  whites  and 
three  Indians ;  the  other  to  cruise  from  Stono  to  Port  Royal.  See  Cooper 
(ed.),  Statutes,  II.  300-2,  319,  354-7,  607. 

51  Letter  from  South  Carolina,  1710,  pp.  31  f. 


88 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


tions  were  made  for  mobilizing  one  hundred  warriors  among 
the  Savannah,  Apalache,  and  Yuchi  near  Savannah  Town,  as 
many  more  among  the  Cherokee,  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  two 
hundred  among  the  Lower  Creeks,  and  fifty  among  the  distant 
Talapoosas  and  Alabamas.52  Here  was  striking  evidence  of  the 
extent  of  the  Carolinian  sphere  of  influence. 

Hitherto  the  Indian  forces  of  Carolina  had  been  employed 
almost  solely  for  raids  upon  enemy  Indians.  But  after  the  affair 
at  Charles  Town  in  1706  a  new  policy  of  attack  was  inaugu¬ 
rated,  aimed  at  the  centres  of  French  and  Spanish  power  in 
the  Southwest.  Though  the  results  fell  short  of  the  goal,  there 
was  revealed  an  aggressive,  expansionist  spirit  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina  not  without  interest  in  the  rise  of  Anglo-American  im¬ 
perialism. 

In  the  summer  of  1707,  Bienville  was  warned  by  the  In¬ 
dians  that  the  English  were  mobilizing  all  of  their  tribes,  this 
time  ‘pour  manger  un  village  de  blancs.’  He  learned  from 
prisoners  captured  by  a  Tohome  scouting  party  that  the  im¬ 
mediate  objective  was  Pensacola,  but  that  after  that  post  was 
destroyed  an  attack  was  intended  upon  Mobile.  Bienville  under¬ 
took  to  put  the  governor  of  Pensacola  on  his  guard,  but  with 
little  success,  for  a  few  days  later  the  Spanish  town  was  sud¬ 
denly  attacked.  Led  by  a  few  Englishmen,  a  band  of  several 
hundred  Talapoosas  burned  and  pillaged  the  houses  right  up 
to  the  fort,  which,  indeed,  they  had  actually  entered  before  the 
Spanish  rallied  to  repel  them.  Eleven  Spaniards  were  killed, 
fifteen  captured,  and  a  dozen  slaves  carried  away  as  the  enemy 
retired  to  their  base  among  the  Upper  Creeks.  Again  raiders 
from  Mobile  brought  in  accounts  of  preparations  against  Pen¬ 
sacola,  excited  rumors  of  a  hundred  English  and  Huguenots 
come  on  horseback  to  lead  a  thousand  Indians  against  the 
Spanish  outpost.  In  November,  indeed,  Pensacola  was  once 
more  invested.  But  dissensions  arose,  and  three-fourths  of  the 
besieging  force  deserted.  When  Bienville  appeared  with  relief, 
December  8,  the  remnant,  thirteen  Englishmen  and  three  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty  Indians,  had  already  retired.  Bienville  had  acted 
with  wonted  energy.  But  from  Pensacola  he  met  with  reproach 
for  having  withdrawn  the  Indians  of  that  region  to  Mobile.53 

52  JCHA,  April  21,  23,  28,  30,  1709. 

53  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13  A  2,  ff.  89,  95-99;  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique, 
August  25,  November  16,  24,  1707. 


89 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 

Already  the  Carolinians  were  aiming  at  a  more  difficult 
prize :  at  Mobile,  the  key  to  the  control  of  the  eastern  Gulf 
region  and  the  lower  Mississippi.  All  of  Bienville’s  finesse,  all 
his  knowledge  of  wilderness  intrigue,  were  soon  in  requisition 
to  preserve  Louisiana. 

The  program  for  this  greater  western  campaign  was 
adopted  by  the  assembly  in  the  autumn  of  1707.  It  had  been 
formulated  by  Thomas  Welch,  the  veteran  Chickasaw  trader, 
and  by  Thomas  Nairne,  the  provincial  Indian  agent.54  To  regu¬ 
late  the  abuses  of  the  Indian  trade  an  act  had  been  passed  in 
July,  1707,  after  long  agitation  and  a  sharp  conflict  between 
Johnson  and  the  assembly.  Nairne  was  the  obvious  choice  of 
the  assembly  for  the  new  Indian  agency,  for  the  first  time 
established  as  a  regular  provincial  office.  A  planter  at  St.  Helena 
on  the  southern  border,  he  was  specially  qualified  by  long  ex¬ 
perience  with  the  neighboring  Yamasee  and  as  a  partizan  leader 
in  the  Florida  campaigns.  Unfortunately,  he  had  won  the  bitter 
enmity  of  the  governor  by  his  prominence  as  a  leader  of  the 
country  party  in  the  controversies  of  the  time  over  the  church 
act,  the  appointment  of  the  public  receiver,  and  the  regulation 
of  the  Indian  trade  under  exclusive  control  of  the  assembly.55 

Though  South  Carolina  was  torn  by  factions  in  1707,  seem¬ 
ingly  there  was  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  ‘absolute 
Necessity’  that  the  French  ‘should  be  removed.’  These  were 
the  words  of  a  resolution  of  both  houses  in  conference  in 
November.56  The  attack  on  Charles  Town,  and  now  rumors 
from  the  West  Indies  of  an  impending  new  invasion  with  the 
aid  of  the  French  Indians  near  Mobile,57  made  action  impera¬ 
tive.  Anticipating  an  early  peace,  Johnson  favored  an  im¬ 
mediate  assault  upon  Mobile.58  But  Welch  and  Nairne  coun¬ 
selled  the  Commons  House  that  first  of  all  the  most  formidable 
of  the  French  allies,  the  Choctaw  and  the  Yazoo,  must  be  won 
over  to  the  English  side,  or  to  neutrality. 

Nairne’s  project  was  to  raise  a  small  force  of  volunteers 
among  the  Indian  traders,  and  to  assemble  at  the  Upper  Creeks 

H  JCHA,  October  23,  28,  November  1,  22,  1707. 

55  See  below,  pp.  145-9. 

“JCHA,  November  7,  1707. 

61  Ibid.,  October  27,  1707,  information  from  a  shipmaster  recently  from 
St.  Thomas. 

,  68  Ibid.,  November  7,  1707. 


90 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


a  much  larger  army  of  Indians.  Captain  Welch  and  Captain 
Jones,  traders,  were  designated  his  lieutenants.59  ‘My  design,’ 
Nairne  afterwards  wrote,  ‘was  to  fall  down  from  the  Tala- 
poosies  against  the  French  with  a  fleet  of  Eighty  Canoes  man’d 
with  500  Indians  and  1000  by  land,  15  English  on  the  one  part 
and  36  with  the  other.  With  these  forces  I  pretended  Either  to 
destroy  or  remove  into  our  Territory  all  the  Salvages  from 
Mobile  to  the  Mississippi,  and  up  the  river  to  36  Degrees  of 
Latitude.’  Thus  he  hoped  to  reduce  Fort  St.  Louis,  or  in  any 
case  to  destroy  the  Indian  system  of  Mobile  and  thereby  its 
trade.  ‘I  design’d  to  Invite  by  fair  means  all  that  would  accept 
of  our  friendship,  upon  the  Terms  of  Subjecting  themselves  to 
our  government  and  removeing  into  our  territory,’  he  con¬ 
tinued,  ‘and  quite  to  ruine  such  as  wo[u]ld  not,  soe  that  the 
French  might  never  be  in  a  Capacity  to  raise  an  Indian  Army 
to  Disturb  us  or  our  Allies;  and  that  the  Lower  parts  of  the 
Mississipi,  being  left  Desolate,  the  trade  of  the  uper  might  fall 
to  this  province  by  means  of  factories,  Setled  on  Cussate 
[Tennessee]  river.’60  The  location  of  one  such  factory  Nairne 
indicated  on  his  map  at  a  ‘low  riff  of  rocks,’  the  Muscle 
Shoals.61  The  route  of  Couture  and  of  Bellefeuille  would  thus 
become  the  principal  route  of  English  trading  expansion  into 
the  West,  and  the  French  program  of  encirclement  would  be 
defeated. 

Nairne  was  a  visionary,  perhaps,  but  he  was  also  a  man  of 
action.  In  the  spring  of  1708 — this  was  his  own  boast — he  ven¬ 
tured  his  life  and  made  a  peace  with  the  Choctaws.62  Welch 
meanwhile  summoned  a  council  at  the  Yazoo  of  the  principal 
river  tribes,  Yazoo,  Arkansas,  Tourima,  Taensa,  Natchez,  and 
Koroa,  with  like  results.63  Welch  seems  also  to  have  con¬ 
templated  a  mission  to  the  Illinois.  The  sum  of  £100  in  presents 

69  Ibid.,  November  7,  22,  1707.  The  men  were  ‘to  have  £5  in  hand  and 
£15  on  return,’  the  commanders  more,  but  plunder  should  be  equally  divided 
between  officers  and  men. 

80C.O.  5:382,  no.  11  (Nairne’s  memorial  of  July  10,  1708). 

61  Crisp,  A  Compleat  Description  [1711?],  Nairne  inset. 

82  Nairne,  doc.  cit.  Cf.  Bienville  to  the  minister,  October  12,  1708,  in 
Arch.  Nat.,  col.  Cu  A  2,  ff.  168  et  seq..  and  177-92. 

63  Ibid.  Cf.  JCHA,  December  10,  1708,  for  petition  of  Welch,  and  order 
on  public  receiver  to  pay  him  £80  ‘for  making  a  peace  with  the  Yasaws  and 
Cophtas  [Quapaws?]  and  a  further  reward  promised  by  the  House  when 
he  hath  Removed  them  to  the  Cusawte  River.’ 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


91 


for  which  Nairne  had  asked  had  been  increased  by  the  as¬ 
sembly  to  nearly  £2  50. 64  Such  liberality  had  its  effect,  coupled 
with  English  sneers  at  the  French  as  ‘the  fugitive  remnants  of 
a  nation  destroyed  by  the  English.’  Just  how  far  Nairne  and 
Welch  were  able  to  carry  the  intrigue  is  not  quite  certain. 
Bienville  reported  to  Ponchartrain  that  the  Indians,  while  ad¬ 
mitting  the  Carolinians  with  their  presents  and  trading  goods, 
refused  either  to  aid  or  sanction  the  attack  on  Mobile.  But  im¬ 
mediately  he  set  to  work  to  enlarge  the  stockade  at  Mobile  as 
a  refuge  for  the  neighboring  tribes,  and  sent  Chateaugue  to 
restore  peace  between  the  Choctaw  and  the  Chickasaw.  He  even 
appealed  to  Pensacola  and  to  the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  for 
powder  and  trading  goods.  The  commissary,  D’Artaguiette, 
was  filled  with  gloom.  ‘Les  Sauvages,’  he  reminded  Ponchar¬ 
train,  ‘sont  a  qui  plus  leur  donne.’65 

Though  Bienville’s  diplomacy  had  checked  the  western 
enterprise,  apparently  it  would  have  been  renewed  but  for  de¬ 
velopments  in  Carolina.  If  there  was  fear  in  Louisiana  in  the 
spring  of  1708,  there  was  also  apprehension  in  the  English 
colony.  Strange  portents  had  been  observed.  On  the  Louisiana 
border,  Indians  recounted,  ‘there  fell  a  Shower  of  Blood,  in 
which  they  walk’d  up  to  their  Ankles.’  At  Edisto  and  in  the 
‘Indian  Land’  near  Port  Royal  had  been  heard  the  firing  of 
ghostly  guns.  Then  came  an  account  from  Jamaica  that  the 
Spanish  and  French  were  raising  a  large  force  supposedly  for 
a  second  attempt  upon  Charles  Town.  It  was  this  alarm,  con¬ 
firmed  by  reports  from  St.  Augustine,  which  ‘put  a  full  stop,’ 
Nairne  said,  to  the  Mobile  expedition.  An  embargo  was  laid 
at  Charles  Town,  and  preparations  were  pressed  for  defense. 
The  provincial  militia  was  strengthened  by  a  force  of  negro 
cattle-hunters,  and  Nairne’s  army  of  fifteen  hundred  Indians 
was  held  in  reserve  to  meet  the  expected  invasion.66 

64  Ibid.,  November  22,  1707. 

65  See  references  in  note  62 ;  and  also  D’Artaguiette  to  the  minister, 
August  18  and  October  1,  1708,  in  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13  A  2,  ff.  328  f.,  341-8; 
Charlevoix,  Histoire  et  description  generate  de  la  Nouvelle  France,  Paris, 
1744,  IV.  41  f. 

“Nairne,  doc.  cit.  Boston  News  Letter,  May  24,  1708;  ibid.,  May  31, 
1708,  after  mention  of  the  Mobile  project,  quoted  from  letters  from  Dor¬ 
chester,  S.  C.,  of  April  7,  that  ‘our  agent  that  manages  the  Indian  Trade 
has  sent  word  that  1400  Indians  offer  their  Service,  but  it  is  not  yet  put  in 
execution.’ 


92 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Meanwhile,  Nairne  continued  his  diplomatic  manoeuvres 
until  his  arrest,  the  culmination  of  his  feud  with  Sir  Nathaniel 
Johnson,  brought  confusion  upon  the  whole  ambitious  western 
campaign.  June  23,  1708,  the  Indian  agent  was  clapped  into 
Charles  Town  jail  upon  a  mittimus  and  languished  there  for 
over  five  months.  He  was  charged  by  Johnson  with  no  less  a 
crime  than  ‘High  Treason  in  Endeavouring  to  disinherit  and 
Dethrone  our  Rightfull  and  Lawfull  Sovereigne  Lady  Queen 
Ann,  and  to  place  in  her  Room  the  pretended  Prince  of 
Wales.’67  Nairne  spent  his  imprisonment  composing  vigorous 
petitions  to  the  Proprietors,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the 
Crown  to  prove  that  he  was  the  victim  of  a  singularly  tyran¬ 
nical  persecution  on  personal  and  political  grounds.68  The 
amazing  charge  of  treason  was  based  on  no  overt  act,  but  upon 
garbled  expressions  attributed  to  Nairne  by  a  couple  of  rogues 
in  employ  of  Colonel  Broughton,  Johnson’s  son-in-law  and  a 
magnate  of  the  Indian  trade.  Broughton  was  particularly  ag¬ 
grieved,  Nairne  asserted,  because  he,  as  Indian  agent,  had  inter¬ 
fered  with  the  enslaving  of  friendly  Indians.  Nairne’s  inter¬ 
ference  with  the  governor’s  perquisites  in  Indian  presents  was 
also  a  factor.  The  treason  charge  stopped  habeas  corpus  pro¬ 
ceedings,  nor  could  Nairne  secure  his  freedom  on  bail.  Late  in 
November  he  was  apparently  released  to  take  his  oath  as  a 
member  of  the  assembly,  but  at  Johnson’s  insistence  he  was 
not  allowed  to  sit.69  The  case  was  never  brought  to  trial.  In 
December  the  Lords  Proprietors,  possibly  in  view  of  Nairne’s 
complaints,  decided  to  remove  Johnson  from  office.70  In  1710 
Nairne  went  to  England  and  was  soon  taken  into  the  fa\or  of 
the  Proprietors.71  But  meanwhile  he  had  lost  his  Indian  agency, 
and  his  great  Louisiana  project  had  come  to  nought. 


67  Mittimus  signed  by  Johnson,  June  24,  1708  (photostat  from  MS  in 

Huntington  Library).  .  „  ■  ,  _ j 

«  c.O.  5  :306,  no.  4.  Also  petitions  to  the  Secretary,  the  Proprietors,  and 
the  Queen,  accompanied  by  depositions,  petition  of  sixty-two  inhabitants  of 
Colleton  county  for  Nairne’s  release,  etc.  (photostats  from  manuscripts 
in  Huntington  Library).  See,  too,  JCHA,  November  28  1707 

69  See  JCHA,  November  25,  31,  December  3,  9,  10,  11,  1/08  and  April 
27-29,  1709,  for  Nairne’s  exclusion,  his  clash  with  the  assembly  over  the 
sending  of  his  map  to  England,  and  his  discharge  as  agent. 

70  C.O.  5:292,  p.  5;  see  also  ibid.,  p.  15.  .  .  .  .  .  , 

71  Ibid  pp.  34  44,  46.  Nairne  was  nominated  to  the  Admiralty  as  judge- 
advocate  for  South  Carolina.  It  was  probably  at  this  time  that  he  wrote,  or 
supplied  the  data  for,  the  tract,  A  Letter  from  South  Carolina,  1/10. 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


93 


Nairne,  however,  had  not  surrendered  those  sanguine  hopes 
of  English  empire  in  the  Southwest  which  had  been,  perhaps, 
the  talk  of  the  camp  in  1702  in  his  first  campaign  with  that 
other  notable  Carolinian  expansionist,  James  Moore.  From 
Charles  Town  jail  Nairne  sent  home  to  the  Secretary  of  State 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  documents  in  the  history  of  Anglo- 
American  frontier  ‘imperialism.’  By  this  memorial  of  July  10, 
1708, 72  Nairne  sought  to  create  an  essential  condition  for  fu¬ 
ture  efforts  to  extend  English  continental  dominion :  the  edu¬ 
cation  of  the  English  colonial  authorities  in  the  strategy  of  the 
southern  frontier.  Only  South  Carolina,  he  insisted,  ‘by  trading 
and  other  Management,’  could  put  a  check  to  French  ag¬ 
grandizement  at  the  expense  of  the  English  colonies  on  the 
one  hand,  and  of  New  Mexico  on  the  other.  ‘A  Consequence 
of  this  is  that  this  province  being  a  frontier,  both  against  the 
French  and  the  Spaniard,  ought  not  to  be  Neglected.’  But 
neglected  it  had  been  by  the  Proprietors,  and  already  men  of 
Nairne’s  stamp  were  looking  toward  royal  government  as  the 
hope  of  Carolina.  His  western  design  was  described,  and  the 
importance  of  posts  along  the  Tennessee  River  trade-route  as 
a  means  of  diverting  the  fur  trade  of  the  Northwest  was  made 
clear.  This  was  a  full  decade  before  Spotswood’s  suggestion  of 
a  fort  on  Lake  Erie,  and  two  years  before  the  Virginia  gov¬ 
ernor  developed  his  fantastic  scheme  for  projecting  settlement 
westward  along  the  James  River.  The  strategic  location  of  the 
Cherokee,  ‘now  entirely  Subject  to  us  .  .  .  our  only  defence 
on  the  Back  parts,’  raised  the  question  of  their  protection 
against  the  northern  raids.  Instructions  should  go  to  the  gov¬ 
ernors  of  Maryland  and  New  York  to  interpose  with  the 
Iroquois.  ‘All  parts  of  the  English  Dominions,’  he  wrote,  ‘ought 
mutually  to  Espouse  one  another’s  interest  in  Everything  that 
relates  to  the  Common  defense  against  the  French  and  their 
party.’  With  the  memorial  Nairne  submitted  a  map73  based 
upon  his  own  travels  and  observations  ‘to  the  End  your  noble 
Lordship  may  at  one  View  perceive  what  part  of  the  Continent 

72C.O.  5:382  (11). 

73  Apparently  not  extant,  though  the  ‘tradition’  appears  in  Moll’s  map  of 
1715,  and  in  a  large  manuscript  map  belonging  to  the  Board  of  Trade  (C.O. 
Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7).  For  a  reference  to  Nairne’s  map  in  1728  see 
C.O.  5  :360,  C  22.  See  also  London  Daily  Journal,  October  14,  1730,  for  a 
criticism  of  Nairne’s  enumeration  of  the  Cherokee. 


94 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


we  are  now  possest  off,  and  what  not,  and  procure  the  Articles 
of  peace,  to  be  formed  in  such  a  manner  that  the  English 
American  Empire  may  not  be  unreasonably  Crampt  up.’  In  the 
negotiations  to  come  due  weight  should  be  given  to  the  western 
claims  of  South  Carolina,  which  Nairne,  ignoring  the  charters, 
confidently  based  upon  her  long-established  Indian  trade.  The 
English  should  therefore  insist  at  the  peace  upon  the  surrender 
of  Mobile. 

Among  other  expedients  to  strengthen  the  southern  fron¬ 
tier,  Nairne  discussed  colonization  in  the  spacious  tone  of  an 
explorer  who  had  ‘had  a  personall  view  of  most  off  those 
parts.’  If  England  could  spare  colonists  it  would  be  best  to 
strengthen  the  South  Carolina  border.  But  ‘if  an  Inclination 
to  Setle  any  Place  to  the  Eastward  of  the  Mississipi  should 
prevaile,’  he  urged  that  ‘the  old  Country  of  the  Apalachias  is 
the  only  best.’  ‘This  place,’  he  added,  ‘wo[u]ld  be  proper  for 
the  seat  of  a  government  to  take  in  the  Neck  of  Florida,  and 
100  miles  to  the  westward  along  the  Bay.’  Another  possibility 
was  to  settle  in  force  a  little  way  west  of  the  Mississippi,  con¬ 
ciliate  the  Indians,  develop  the  logwood  trade  with  Campeche 
and  an  underground  Spanish  commerce,  and  perchance  at  some 
favorable  juncture,  strike  boldly  at  the  Spanish  mine-country. 

In  this  grandiose  scheme  Nairne’s  imagination  carried  him 
beyond  the  vision  of  his  generation.  But  certain  elements  of 
his  program  persisted,  to  be  incorporated  (1720-1721)  in  the 
first  statements  of  British  western  policy.  The  successor  of 
Blake  and  Moore  as  the  organizer  of  Carolinian  expansion, 
Nairne  was  also  in  some  sense  the  forerunner  of  Montgomery 
and  of  Oglethorpe.  Through  the  agency  of  his  neighbor  and 
friend,  John  Barnwell,  his  doctrines  at  length  found  a  hearing 
in  Whitehall.  But  in  the  interval  a  destructive  Indian  war,  of 
which  Nairne  himself  was  the  first  victim,  had  imperilled  the 
results  of  three  decades  of  western  expansion. 

The  vendetta  of  Johnson  and  his  group  against  Nairne  had 
most  unfortunate  results  in  the  West.  The  campaign  of  1708 
collapsed,  and  for  several  years  the  frontier  policy  of  the  pro¬ 
vincial  government  lacked  the  aggressive  character  that  Nairne, 
like  Blake  and  Moore,  had  imparted  to  it.  Not  until  January, 
1711,  was  ‘the  affair  of  Mobile’  once  more  made  the  extra- 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


95 


ordinary  business  of  the  assembly.  Then  for  some  weeks  an 
attempt  against  the  French  was  the  subject  of  debates  and 
conferences.  The  Commons  House,  though  at  first  disposed  to 
strike,  again  postponed  the  enterprise,  at  the  same  time  press¬ 
ing  for  reform  of  the  Indian  trading  regulations.74  In  May,  the 
governor  also  recognized  the  vital  interrelation  of  these  matters 
when  he  urged  a  better  regulation  in  order  to  secure  Indian  aid 
to  oust  the  French  from  the  Southwest.75  Disgruntled  customers 
of  cheating  traders  made  dubious  allies  against  Louisiana. 
Under  the  combined  strains  of  maladroit  management,  the 
licentious  conduct  of  the  traders,  and  the  skillful  diplomacy  of 
Bienville,  the  South  Carolina  Indian  system  was  beginning  to 
show  ominous  signs  of  weakness.  The  first  break  occurred  in 
1712,  when  the  French  succeeded  in  making  peace  with  'the 
Alabama  Indians.  The  mismanagement  of  his  successor*  Nairne 
charged,  was  the  ‘true  cause  of  the  Alabamas  deserting -to 
Mobile.’76 

But  already  the  Carolinians,  alarmed  by  the  ‘apparent 
danger  .  .  .  from  the  conjunction  of  .  .  .  the  Choctaws  and 
Chickisaws,’77  which  Bienville  continued  to  promote,  had  re¬ 
sumed  their  western  offensive.  Although  the  province  was  en¬ 
gaged  at  the  time  in  helping  to  suppress  the  troublesome  Tusca- 
rora  rising  in  North  Carolina,  energy  remained  for  the  prose¬ 
cution  of  the  Indian  trade  and  for  the  vigorous  renewal  of  the 
partizan  warfare  which  was  the  characteristic  method  of  the 
Carolinian  advance..  In  May,  1711,  the  Choctaw-Chickasaw 
feud  was  reopened,  ‘a  l’instigation  des  anglais,’  La  Harpe  re¬ 
corded.78  To  forestall  further  French  efforts  in  that  direction 
in  June  the  assembly  prepared  an  expedition  intended  to  ruin 
the  great  Choctaw  nation  utterly,  and  so  destroy  the  bulwark 
of  Louisiana.  Commissions  were  issued  to  Captain  Theophilus 
Hastings,  appointed  to  lead  the  Creeks,  and  to  the  Emperor 
Brims  of  Coweta.  Thomas  Welch  was  also  named  a  captain 
to  lead  a  supporting  body  of  Chickasaw.  Two  thousand  Indians 
were  expected  to  join  the  expedition.  Supplies  in  the  propor- 

74  JCHA,  January  26,  February  8,  9,  10,  24,  1710/11. 

75  Ibid.,  May  15,  1711. 

76  Journal  of  the  Indian  Commissioners  (hereinafter  cited  as  JIC),  Au¬ 
gust  18,  1713. 

77  JCHA,  June  20,  21,  1711. 

78  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  May,  1711. 


96 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


tion  of  one  pound  of  shot  and  two  pounds  of  powder  for  each 
gunman  were  ordered  sent  up  from  Savannah  Town  to  the 
rendezvous  at  the  Alabamas.  Actually,  Hastings  was  able  in 
the  fall  to  assemble  some  thirteen  hundred  Creeks,  three  hun¬ 
dred  of  them  bowmen.  With  Hastings  and  Brims  this  army 
marched  through  the  populous  Choctaw  towns,  burning,  killing, 
taking  prisoners.  Four  hundred  ‘Houses  and  Plantations,’  it 
was  reported,  were  put  to  the  torch.  The  Choctaw,  however, 
had  not  been  taken  by  surprise;  their  resistance  was  feeble, 
but  most  escaped.  Hastings  killed  but  eighty  Choctaw  and 
carried  off  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  prisoners.  Welch,  with 
only  two  hundred  Chickasaw,  was  reported  to  have  done  equal 
damage.  Had  his  own  Indian  allies  ‘been  governable,  and  not 
run  upon  their  Enemies  at  first  without  command,’  Hastings 
believed  the  Choctaw  would  have  ‘met  with  a  fatal  blow.’79 
Even  so,  the  year  was  one  of  achievement  for  the  frontier 
forces  of  Carolina.  Pensacola  was  again  attacked  from  the 
north.80  John  Barnwell,  reporting  the  success  of  his  North 
Carolina  expedition  in  February,  1712,  congratulated  Gov¬ 
ernor  Craven  on  the  ‘hon’r  and  Glory  of  virtuous  South  Caro¬ 
lina  whose  armies  are  the  same  winter  gathering  Laurells  from 
the  Cape  Florida  and  from  the  Bay  of  Spiritta  Sancta  even  to 
the  Borders  of  Virginia.81  English  prestige  seemed  again  in 
the  ascendant ;  it  was  significant  that  the  wily  Brims,  politician- 
extraordinary  among  the  Creeks,  promised  soon  to  wait  on  the 
governor  at  Charles  Town  ‘to  acknowledge  his  Loyalty  and 
Obedience  to  the  British  Nation.’82 

To  Bienville  it  was  apparent  in  the  spring  of  1712  that 
another  crisis,  like  that  of  1708,  had  arrived.  From  an  escaped 
French  prisoner  he  learned  that  at  Charles  Town  preparations 
were  going  forward  for  war  by  land  and  sea.  Seven  brigantines 
and  an  armed  ship  were  reported  fitting  out ;  and  the  colonists 
boasted  that  these  vessels  would  capture  Mobile  and  Pensacola. 
His  informant  had  been  closely  examined  by  the  Carolinians 
regarding  the  loyalty  of  the  French  Indians  and  of  the  Louisi- 

79  JCHA,  June  20,  21,  22,  1711 ;  May  24,  1712.  Boston  News  Letter,  March 
31,  1712. 

80  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  62  f.  and  note. 

81 SCHGM,  IX,  36.  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane,  pp.  liv-lv,  is  certainly  in  error 
in  ascribing  the  offensives  of  1712  to  the  initiative  of  Spotswood. 

82  Boston  News  Letter,  March  31,  1712. 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


97 


ana  garrison.  A  Canadian,  moreover,  who  had  been  held 
prisoner  among  the  Alabamas,  told  of  three  hundred  pirogues 
assembled  at  their  village,  but  five  days’  journey  to  Fort  St. 
Louis.  All  the  English  allies  were  said  to  be  mobilizing  at  the 
bidding  of  the  traders ;  they  expected  at  any  moment  to  receive 
their  presents  from  the  governor  of  Carolina.  Confirmation 
came  with  each  Indian  prisoner  brought  in  from  the  English 
border.  ‘I  can  only  assure  your  highness,’  Bienville  reported  to 
the  minister  in  March,  ‘that  I  am  taking  every  measure  to 
prevent  the  success  of  this  enterprise.’83 

Bienville’s  essential  genius  for  forest  diplomacy  was  again 
revealed  in  this  emergency.  The  Alabama  held  the  key  to  the 
Mobile  border;  the  Alabama  must  be  won  over  to  the  French. 
Bienville  was  equal  to  the  task.  ‘At  the  end  of  the  same  month 
[March],’  wrote  La  Harpe,  ‘M.  de  Bienville  granted  peace  to 
the  Alabamas,  the  Abihkas,  and  to  other  nations  of  Carolina, 
and  made  peace  between  them  and  our  allies,  so  that  there 
was  a  general  peace  among  the  savages.’84  On  the  eve  of  the 
European  settlement  Iberville’s  system  was  restored  in  the 
Southwest. 

The  peace  of  1713,  following  closely  upon  this  triumph  of 
Bienville  in  Indian  negotiation,  disappointed  Carolinian  hopes 
that  the  French  ‘intrusion’  into  Louisiana,  and  with  it  the 
menace  of  encirclement,  would  be  brought  to  an  end.  The  Lords 
Proprietors,  though  they  had  done  nothing  to  support  their 
colonists  in  the  field,  in  March,  1712,  petitioned  the  Board  of 
Trade  that  Spanish  and  French  encroachments  might  ‘be  re¬ 
mov’d  at  this  Treaty  of  Peace.’85  At  Utrecht,  however,  the 
boundaries  in  the  West  were  left  undefined,  except  by  implica¬ 
tion  in  Article  XV  of  the  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship  be¬ 
tween  the  crowns  of  France  and  Great  Britain.86  The  French 
therein  promised  not  to  molest  the  Five  Nations,  ‘soumis  a  la 
Grande  Bretagne’ ;  and  this  pledge  extended  also  to  ‘les  autres 
Nations  de  1’Amerique,  amies  de  cette  Couronne.’  At  the  same 
time  the  English  promised  to  deal  peacefully  with  the  Indians 

83  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13  A  2,  ff.  691-695. 

84  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  March,  1712. 

83  C.O.  5  :292,  p.  57. 

80  Dumont  (ed.),  Corps  diplomatique,  VIII.  341.  See  Heinrich,  La  Louis- 
iane,  p.  Iv  and  note. 


98 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


who  were  subjects  or  friends  of  the  French.  But  which  tribes 
should  be  attributed  to  either  crown  was  left  for  later  regula¬ 
tion  by  commissioners.  In  the  South  the  events  of  the  next  two 
years  revealed  that  the  English  colonists  would  press  their 
claims  to  the  utmost  under  this  article.  The  French  at  Mobile 
found  the  English  of  Charles  Town  quite  as  uncomfortable 
neighbors  in  peace  as  in  war.  In  vain  La  Mothe  Cadillac  in¬ 
vited  Governor  Craven  to  cooperate  in  extending  the  general 
peace  to  the  southern  Indians,  English  and  French  alike,  to 
withdraw  his  traders  from  the  tribes  that  had  traded  first  with 
the  French,  and  to  comply  with  the  spirit  of  the  peace  by  pre¬ 
venting  those  traders  from  instigating  slave-catching  raids 
among  the  French  allies.87  After  1713  there  was  no  longer 
question  of  an  attack  upon  Mobile,  but  in  Indian  politics  and 
in  partizan  warfare  the  two  years  ending  in  1715  marked  the 
climax  of  the  first  English  effort  to  displace  the  French  in  the 
Mississippi  valley. 

In  Louisiana  a  bitter  quarrel  had  developed  between  Bien¬ 
ville  and  the  new  governor,  Cadillac.  Bienville  and  his  friends 
laid  the  rift  to  jealousy  of  his  hold  over  the  Indians  and  the 
garrison  troops.  Cadillac,  they  asserted,  by  his  hauteur  had 
alienated  all  of  the  tribes.88  Certain  it  is  that  fourteen  or  more 
of  the  elite  of  the  garrison  soon  took  the  path  to  Charles  Town, 
and  that  everywhere  the  Indians  welcomed  the  Carolinians 
again  to  their  villages.  While  factions  intrigued  at  Mobile, 
factionalism  in  South  Carolina  was  abated.  The  new  governor, 
Charles  Craven,  was  popular  and  energetic.  In  November,  1712, 
Thomas  Nairne  had  been  restored  to  the  principal  Indian 
agency,  and  had  promptly  won  the  praise  of  the  Indian  com¬ 
missioners  for  ‘capacity  and  diligence’  displayed  in  negotiations 
with  the  western  tribes.  In  1713  he  sent  goods  among  the 
Choctaw,  seeking  to  renew  the  relations  he  had  established  in 
1707  with  this  all-important  tribe.89  The  French  countered  with 
a  council  at  Mobile  (December,  1713),  when  many  of  the 
Choctaw,  it  was  said,  were  brought  to  reject  the  proposals  of 
the  English.90 

81  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13,  A  3,  ff .  489-92,  530. 

88  Ibid.,  ff.  2 72,  784  f. ;  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  1713. 

89JIC,  June  10,  1712;  July  17,  1713.  JCHA,  November  27,  1712,  Decem¬ 
ber  18,  1713. 

90  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  December  10,  1713. 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


99 


It  was  another  than  Nairne,  however,  who  was  made  the 
active  director  of  the  new  enterprise  for  the  conversion  of  all 
the  southern  Indians  to  the  English  trade  and  alliance.  Recently 
there -had  arrived  in  South  Carolina  a  Welsh  gentleman  of 
property  and  connections  in  Montgomeryshire,  Price  Hughes, 
Esq.  He  had  come  over  to  promote  a  scheme  of  Welsh  coloniza¬ 
tion,  possibly  inspired  by  the  visit  to  England  in  1710  of 
Thomas  Nairne,  whom  he  had  described  in  a  letter,  prior  to 
emigrating,  as  his  ‘good  friend.’  Certainly  Nairne  had  materi¬ 
ally  assisted  his  brother,  Valentine  Hughes,  and  the  Welsh 
servants  whom  he  had  sent  out  before  him  to  Carolina.  Valen¬ 
tine  had  died  in  1712,  and  on  his  own  arrival  Price  Hughes 
had  been  disappointed  in  the  lands  acquired  for  the  settlement 
at  Port  Royal,  and  had  dispersed  his  servants.  In  1714  he 
received  another  grant  of  3,184  acres  in  Craven  county.91 

But  already  his  ambition  had  fixed  upon  another  career 
than  that  of  a  patriarchal  tide-water  planter.  Upon  him,  as  upon 
Nairne,  the  great  West  had  cast  its  spell.  ‘An  English  Gent., 
who  had  a  particular  fancy  of  rambling  among  the  Indians’ — 
such  was  the  character  given  him  by  Spotswood  of  Virginia. 
By  testimony  of  Cadillac,  ‘il  etoit  ingenieur,  et  geographe,’  and, 
moreover,  ‘homme  d’esprit.’92  With  his  adventurous  tastes 
Hughes  was  soon  drawn  into  the  provincial  service  as  a  volun¬ 
teer  Indian  diplomat.  In  consequence  of  his  western  travels  he 
transformed  and  expanded  his  settlement  plan  into  an  amazing 
project  for  a  new  British  province  in  the  lower  Mississippi 
valley.  His  assassination  in  Louisiana  in  1715  brought  un¬ 
merited  oblivion  to  his  name  and  his  enterprises.  For  surely 
Price  Hughes  was  an  authentic  prophet  of  Anglo-American 
westward  expansion. 

In  the  spring  of  1713  it  was  thought  that  the  French  had  ‘a 
design  to  tamper  with  the  Cherokees,’  and  shortly  Hughes  was 
in  the  mountain  country,  sending  down  intelligence  by  the 
traders  to  the  Indian  commissioners.93  ‘Our  fears  here  of  the 

01  The  will  of  ‘Pryce  Hughes  of  Kavllygan,  Montgomery,  gent.,’  dated 
February  28,  1711/12,  and  proved  June  27,  1719,  is  in  SCHGM,  V.  221.  See 
also  C.O.  5  :398,  p.  53  (land  grant)  ;  and  letters  of  Hughes  to  Dr.  Charles 
Noble,  [n.d.],  to  Thomas  Nairne,  [n.d.],  and  John  Jones,  [circa  October, 
1713],  MSS  in  possession  of  Maggs  Brothers,  London. 

83  Spotswood,  Letters,  II.  331 ;  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C“  A  4,  ff.  521  f. 

83JIC,  May  14,  August  19,  November  31,  1713. 


100 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


growing  Interest  of  the  French  makes  us  redouble  our  in¬ 
dustry/  he  wrote  on  his  return,  praising  the  new  governor, 
Charles  Craven,  for  his  encouragement  of  all  projects  for  cap¬ 
turing  the  Indian  trade  of  the  West.  Such  a  scheme  Hughes 
had  already  concocted.  On  the  Tennessee  River,  he  reported, 
he  had  met  two  Frenchmen  from  Canada  and  Mobile,  secured 
their  release  from  their  Indian  captors,  supplied  them  with  a 
cargo,  and  with  the  governor’s  permission  despatched  them  to 
the  Illinois  and  to  ‘seven  numerous  nations’  on  the  Missouri 
River.  ‘God  knows,’  he  remarked,  ‘what  the  effect  of  so  distant 
an  embassy  will  be.’94  Thus  were  inaugurated  those  far-reach¬ 
ing  intrigues  among  the  western  tribes  which  in  the  next  year 
and  a  half  made  the  name  of  ‘master  You’  respected  and  feared 
throughout  Louisiana.  His  goal  was  the  capture  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  fur  trade  and  the  closing  of  the  river  highway  between 
Canada  and  Louisiana. 

This  was,  of  course,  in  essence  the  old  program  of  Blake, 
of  Moore,  of  Nairne,  the  logical  sequel,  moreover,  of  the  policy 
preached  by  Nicholson  and  Bellomont.  Nairne,  too,  had  dis¬ 
cussed  western  planting  as  a  supplement  to  Carolinian  trade. 
But  it  remained  for  Hughes,  who  held  that  colonies  in  the 
interior  were  essential  to  primacy  in  the  peltry  trade,  to  elabo¬ 
rate  the  first  concrete  British  plan  of  the  eighteenth  century 
for  trans-Appalachian  settlement. 

Hughes  was  an  observing  traveller;  he  returned  to  Charles 
Town  from  his  first  inland  tour  intoxicated  by  what  he  had 
seen.  ‘This  Summer,’  he  wrote  to  his  brother-in-law  at  home,95 
‘I’ve  been  a  considerable  way  to  the  Westwd.  upon  the 
branches  of  the  Mesisipi,  where  I  saw  a  country  as  different 
from  Carolina  as  the  best  parts  of  our  country  are  from  the 
fens  of  Lincolnshire.’  The  natives  he  described  as  friendly,  the 
land  as  abounding  ‘with  many  fine  navigable  Rivers,  pleasant 
Savannahs,  plenty  of  coal,  lead,  iron,  lime  and  freestone  wth. 
several  salt  springs;  a  th[o] rough  intermixture  of  Hills  and 
Vales  and  as  fine  timber  as  the  largest  I  ever  saw  in  England.’ 
‘There’s  no  land  in  America  now  left  y’ts  worth  anything,’  he 

81  Hughes  to  the  Duchess  of  Ormonde,  Charles  [Town],  October  15, 
1713,  MS  in  possession  of  Maggs  Brothers. 

“5  Hughes  to  ‘Bro.  [John]  Jones,’  [circa  October,  1713],  MS  in  possession 
of  Maggs  Brothers. 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


101 


declared  roundly,  ‘but  what’s  on  the  Mesisipi.’  Thither  he  was 
now  determined  to  lead  the  great  numbers  of  Welshmen  who, 
he  believed,  would  come  over  to  Carolina  at  his  bidding.  ‘If  they 
refuse,’  he  charged  his  correspondent,  John  Jones,  ‘tell  them  I 
let  them  starve  for  timorous  drones.  It  was  on  their  account  I 
and  my  brother  came  over.’  At  first  only  adults  should  be  sent, 
especially  men  able  to  march  overland  to  the  colony.  Bristol 
was  named  as  the  port  of  embarkation.  From  his  friends  in 
Wales  he  selected  leaders  to  assemble  the  colonists  and  advance 
the  funds.  But  the  enterprise,  he  knew,  must  be  upon  a  national 
footing.  A  ship,  tools,  supplies  were  required ;  permission  must 
be  had  to  transport  poor  colonists,  for  Hughes  disclaimed  an 
intention  to  rob  the  country  of  others,  and  at  least  the  tacit  sup¬ 
port  of  the  Crown  in  what  might  be  made  to  appear  an  in¬ 
trusion  into  the  French  dominions  in  America. 

These  requests  Hughes  incorporated  into  a  petition  to  be 
presented  to  the  Queen;96  and  from  Charles  Town  he  set  hope¬ 
fully  to  work  to  create  an  interest  at  court.  The  Duchess  of 
Powis  was  his  friend;  through  her  Jones  was  advised  to  culti¬ 
vate  the  Duchess  of  Ormonde,  the  wife  of  that  great  personage 
the  Captain-General  in  Flanders,97  and  thus  gain  access  to  the 
Queen.  In  letters  to  Jones  and  the  Duchess  of  Ormonde  written 
in  October,  17 13, 98  Hughes  developed  his  plan.  The  Queen,  he 
argued,  could  not  better  bestow  her  charity  than  in  aiding  the 
great  numbers  of  poor  in  Wales  who  should  begin  the  settle¬ 
ment.  ‘But  I  hope  that  the  secureing  so  fine  and  spacious  a 
countrey  to  her  Crown  will  clearly  out  ballance  so  small  a 
Charge,  and  be  a  lasting  fund  for  the  settling  poor  Familyes 
hereafter.’  The  support  furnished  by  Louis  XIV  to  Louisiana 
was  held  up  for  her  emulation.  ‘The  French  King  has  given 
the  utmost  encouragement  to  his  Colony  at  Movile.  ’Tis  he  that 
sends  over  settlers  thither  and  in  a  manner  bestows  the  car¬ 
riage  of  all  the  goods.  Besides  this  (to  his  immortal  memory 
be  it  spoken)  he  maintains  Missionaryes.’  At  the  same  time  he 
recalled  the  barbarities  of  the  French  ‘to  the  New  England 
men.’  To  prevent  ‘the  like  fate  here  .  .  .  can  be  done  no  other- 

80  Apparently  not  extant ;  described  in  letters  cited  in  notes  94,  95. 

07  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  VIII.  60-5. 

08  The  quotations  that  follow  are  from  the  latter. 


102 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


wise  than  by  possessing  ourselves  of  those  vacant  parts  of  this 
Province  :  which  they  will  otherwise  so  soon  be  Masters  off.’ 

Herein  nothing  shall  be  done  that’s  contrary  to  the  Law  of 
nations  &  the  general  rights  of  Mankind.  We’le  not  encroach  upon 
the  acquisitions  of  the  French;  but  in  an  industrious  way  seek  an 
honest  Settlement  in  those  parts  we’ve  allready  fixt  upon  to  that 
purpose :  unless  our  delays  will  Suffer  them  when  sensible  of  our 
designs  to  slip  in  before  us,  wch  otherwise  they  do  not  for  some 
time  design. 

We  have  several  traders  on  the  Mesisipi  &  its  branches ;  &  the 
settlement  which  the  French  have  at  Movile  is  ab[ou]t  120  miles 
to  the  Eastward  of  the  place  we  have  fixt  upon  [i.e.,  Natchez  or 
Yazoo?].99  A  great  part  of  both  the  Rivers  [Alabama  and  Missis¬ 
sippi]  we  are  allready  possest  off  as  we  were  long  before  the 
French  settled  at  the  mouths  thereof.  So  that  they  are  but  en- 
croachers  at  best.  As  to  what  they  pretend  of  being  the  first  dis¬ 
coverers  of  those  parts  I  flatly  deny  it ;  &  can  prove  what  I  would 
otherwise  assert  w[i]th  undeniable  Reasons.  But  if  some  huff¬ 
ing  Memorial  like  what  the  Spanish  Ambassadour  gave  King  Wil¬ 
liam  against  the  Scots  (at  Darien)  should  be  offerd:  her  Majesty 
I  hope  will  give  us  leave  to  argue  the  matter  fairly  according  to 
the  Law  of  Nations  &  we  desire  no  more.  But  in  the  mean  time 
let  this  settlement  go  on  least  they  Supplant  us  not  only  in  it  but 
in  our  Trade. 

The  French  when  sensible  of  our  designs  will  probably  send 
some  settlers  to  our  neighborhood  from  Movile.  But  probably 
they’le  be  little  the  better  for  it  when  we  have  a  precedent  title 
both  by  claim  and  possession.  If  the  English  think  proper  to  fol¬ 
low  their  garbe  at  home:  the  Britains  I  believe  will  not  be  Subject 
to  their  Prescriptions  in  America,  Having  as  yet  some  little  of  our 
old  courage  as  well  as  discretion  left. 

None  of  the  Carolinians  had  asserted  more  boldly  their 
western  claims,  based  upon  the  pioneer  exploits  of  their  traders. 
Hughes  apparently  expected  to  dispute  with  the  French  the 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi ;  though  the  first  settlers  should 
go  overland  ‘to  the  place  designed  for  a  town  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Messisipi  to  erect  magazines  of  corn  and  provisions,’ 
future  colonists  would  be  sent  round  by  sea.100  Like  Nairne 

99  In  the  letter  to  Jones,  Hughes  referred  to  an  accompanying  map : 
‘Where  the  Messisipi  divides  you  see  I’ve  markt  on  the  places  designd  for 
a  town.’  Unfortunately  this  does  not  appear  on  Spotswood’s  copy  of  the 
Hughes  map  (C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  Virginia,  2).  But  from  various  indica¬ 
tions  it  could  not  have  been  farther  north  than  the  Yazoo. 

100  Hughes  to  Jones. 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 


103 


he  foresaw  expansion  west  of  the  great  river;  he  advised  that 
the  mines  be  kept  unpatented,  ‘for  such  assuredly  there  are  the 
other  side  the  Mesisipi :  the  Indians  having  brought  me  pieces 
of  oar  from  two  Several  mines  they  discoverd  to  me.’  Her 
Majesty,  too,  should  ‘keep  that  colony  in  her  own  hands  &  not 
grant  it  to  any  body.  It  may  indeed  for  some  time  yet  pass 
under  the  name  &  government  of  Carolina ;  but  with  the  leave 
of  the  Honourable  Persons  owners  of  that  Province,  as  well  as 
of  the  King  of  France  who  has  styld  that  part  of  it  Louisania, 
I’le  make  bold  to  give  it  the  worthyer  name  of  Annarea  in 
honour  of  her  Majesty  through  whose  bounty  ’twill  I  hope  be 
settled.’101 

Though  nothing  came  of  this  forgotten  project  of  western 
empire,  the  scheme  was  not  altogether  chimerical.  Certainly  it 
was  significant  of  the  exuberant  ‘imperialism’  which  Hughes 
had  so  soon  absorbed  in  Carolina,  perhaps  from  his  Port  Royal 
neighbors,  John  Barnwell,  and  those  other  memorialists  of 
frontier  expansion,  Thomas  Nairne  and  John  Stewart.102 
Probably  nowhere  else  in  America  at  the  time  was  there  a 
group  comparable  to  this  circle  of  southern  border  planters  in 
their  aggressive  ideas  of  English  western  policy. 

Expansion  of  English  colonization  as  well  as  of  English 
trade  supplied,  then,  a  motive  for  the  extraordinary  activities 
of  Hughes  in  the  West  from  1713  to  1715. 103  As  a  result  of 
his  efforts,  in  cooperation  with  the  traders,  new  factories  were 
established,  a  firmer  league  was  formed  with  the  Chickasaw, 
and  even  the  Choctaw,  except  two  loyal  villages,  were  per¬ 
suaded  to  desert  the  French  alliance.  On  the  Mississippi  his 
intrigue  embraced  the  tribes  from  the  Illinois  to  the  Red  River 
and  the  Gulf.  In  November,  1713,  the  Indian  commissioners 
‘ordered  that  Mr.  Hughs  have  all  possible  Incouragement  given 
him  in  his  design’d  Journey  and  that  a  Letter  be  writt  to  the 

10'  Hughes  to  Duchess  of  Ormond.  In  this  letter  Hughes  also  gave  an 
account  of  the  Cherokee  Indians,  who  ‘desr’d  me  to  send  that  good  Woman 
(for  so  they  styl’d  her)  [Queen  Anne]  a  present  from  them  viz  a  large 
carpet  made  of  mulberry  bark  for  herself  to  sit  on  and  twelve  small  ones 
for  her  Counsellours.’ 

102  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13c,  1,  f.  80;  2,  If.  76,  82. 

102  In  June,  1714,  when  the  Commons  House  planned  to  revise  the  Indian 
act,  the  bill  was  referred  to  Hughes,  a  non-member,  as  a  sort  of  special 
commissioner.  He  was  consulted  as  to  the  proper  amount  of  a  present  to 
a  delegation  of  Chickasaw  Indians;  and  in  the  matter  of  Francis  Riall,  a 
French  deserter  among  the  Alabamas  (JCHA,  June  8,  12,  1714,  et  passim ). 


104 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Agent  accordingly.’104  Soon  the  French  were  aware  that  a 
new  energy  had  been  infused  into  the  Carolinian  policy.  In 
April,  1714,  led  by  a  dozen  Englishmen,  a  great  army  of  In¬ 
dians,  reported  to  be  two  thousand  fighting  men — Alabamas, 
Abihkas,  Talapoosas,  and  Chickasaws — descended  upon  the 
Choctaw,  not,  as  in  1711,  to  destroy  them,  but  to  impose  peace 
and  trade  with  South  Carolina.  Four  pack-horses,  declared 
Cadillac,  staggered  under  the  weight  of  their  presents.  Only 
two  towns,  Conchaque  and  Tchicachae,  dared,  or  cared,  to  hold 
out,  and  these  loyalists  were  forced  to  flee  their  stockade  in  the 
night  to  the  shelter  of  Fort  St.  Louis.  Of  the  Mississippi  River 
Indians,  the  Yazoo  had  long  inclined  towards  the  English,  and 
now  the  Natchez  as  well  admitted  Carolina  traders  to  their 
villages,  and  joined  in  raids  upon  the  weaker  tribes  down¬ 
stream.  Cadillac,  complaining  to  Governor  Craven  in  July, 
1714,  of  a  recent  Natchez  attack  upon  the  Chawasha,  wrote  in 
horror  of  ‘ces  anglois  trafiquants  de  chair  humaine.’  While  the 
Cherokee  were  endeavouring  to  convert  the  Illinois  to  the  Eng¬ 
lish  trade,  Hughes  and  the  Carolinians  on  the  Mississippi  were 
intriguing  with  the  French  voyageurs  to  the  same  end.  In 
Canada  the  letters  of  the  Illinois  missionaries  raised  an  alarm 
that  the  Carolinians  planned  to  establish  a  post  on  the  Ohio 
and  draw  to  them  the  Indian  trade  as  far  as  the  Great  Lakes. 
From  Ramesay  and  Begon  as  well  as  from  Cadillac,  Ponchar- 
train  learned  that  a  new  crisis  had  arrived  in  the  West.  When 
Hughes  in  June,  1714,  returned  again  to  Charles  Town  with  a 
party  of  Chickasaw  chiefs  who  came  down  to  ratify  their 
alliance  and  accept  presents,  it  was  evident  that  the  grand  de¬ 
sign  was  already  well  in  train.  ‘En  un  mot,’  wrote  Cadillac  in 
desperation,  ‘les  anglois  n’epargnent  rien  pour  mettre  tous  nos 
sauvages  dans  leur  parti,  ce  qui  sera  bien  difficile  d’em- 
pescher.’105 

The  winter  of  1714-1715  witnessed  the  climax  of  the  enter- 
JIC,  November  31,  1713. 

105JCHA,  December  16,  1714.  Cadillac  to  the  governor  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  March  20,  June  3,  July  14,  1714,  in  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13  A  3,  ff.  489-92. 
Cadillac  to  the  minister,  September  18,  1714,  ibid.,  pp.  518-22.  La  Harpe, 
Journal  historique,  1713,  April,  1714.  Penicaut,  in  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes, 
V.  507,  519;  Richebourg,  Memoire,  in  B.  F.  French  (ed.),  Hist.  Coll,  of  La., 
III.  241;  F.  Le  Maire,  Memoire  (1717),  in  Comptes-rendus  de  I’Athenee 
Louisianais,  September-November,  1889,  p.  5;  Wis.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  XVI. 
303.  318  f.,  325  f.,  331-3. 


105 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 

prise,  and  the  debacle.  The  Carolinians,  Bienville  reported,  had 
magazines  among  the  Alabama  and  the  Choctaw  well-stocked 
with  the  essential  presents;  at  the  Alabamas,  he  had  learned, 
they  were  planning  to  erect  a  post  and  place  a  garrison  of  fifty 
men.  After  visiting  all  the  old  centres  of  trade  Price  Hughes 
made  his  way  to  the  Mississippi.  From  his  base  at  the  Natchez 
this  enterprising  ‘mylord  anglois’  planned  to  visit  the  tribes  of 
the  Red  River,  and  then  descend  to  the  mouth  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi,  hoping  to  win,  by  presents  and  trade,  the  potent  instru¬ 
ments  of  English  expansion,  the  friendship  of  the  Houma,  the 
Bayagoula,  the  Chawasha  and  the  Acolapissa.  His  commission 
from  Governor  Craven  set  forth  the  sweeping  claims  of  the 
Carolinian  expansionists  to  the  Mississippi,  and  to  the  country 
westward  as  far  as  the  Spanish  settlements. 

Meanwhile,  Cadillac’s  efforts  to  oust  the  English  from 
their  hold  upon  the  Choctaw  met  with  dismal  failure :  the 
Charles  Town  traders  laughed  at  the  pompous  governor  of 
Louisiana  and  his  handful  of  coquins.  It  was  fortunate,  per¬ 
haps,  for  Louisiana  that  this  was  the  moment  chosen  by  Cadil¬ 
lac  for  his  journey  to  Illinois  to  discover  the  mine.  In  Febru¬ 
ary,  1715,  he  set  out,  leaving  to  the  experienced  and  adroit 
Bienville  the  task  of  saving  the  colony  in  its  hour  of  greatest 
danger.  Sealed  orders  bade  him  use  every  effort,  and  all  the 
presents  sent  over  from  France,  to  drive  out  the  Carolinians. 
Bienville  knew,  none  better,  that  the  affair  required  despatch. 
He  saw,  wrote  La  Harpe,  that  ‘without  a  prompt  remedy  the 
colony  would  fall  into  the  power  of  the  English.’  To  allay  dis¬ 
content  among  the  chiefs,  and  perhaps  to  vent  his  own  spleen, 
he  assured  the  Indian  council  that  La  Mothe  was  gone,  never 
to  return.  At  his  bidding  the  Choctaw  arrested  an  English 
trader,  and  pillaged  the  magazine  of  presents  destined  for  the 
Mississippi  tribes.  The  tide  was  turning.  But  it  was  not  until 
later  in  the  summer,  after  Hughes  had  been  arrested,  and  when 
the  whole  southern  Indian  country  was  aflame  against  the  Eng¬ 
lish  traders,  that  the  Choctaw  gave  final  proof  of  their  recon¬ 
version,  received  in  peace  the  two  loyalist  villages,  and  sent 
down  to  Mobile  the  head  of  Oulactichiton,  brother  of  the  great 
chief  and  prime  agent  in  the  reception  of  the  English.106 

103  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  1715;  Arch.  Nat.,  col.,  C13  A  3,  ff.  782-5, 
827-32;  A  4,  ff.  237-43,  518-20;  Marine,  B\  IX.  271  f.;  Bibl.  Nat.,  MSS  Fr., 
nouv.  acquis.,  vol.  9301,  p.  300. 


106 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


As  Cadillac  made  his  way  up  the  Mississippi,  signs  had 
multiplied  of  the  scope,  and  the  success,  of  Price  Hughes’s  in¬ 
trigue.  To  Crozat’s  comis  at  Natchez,  Sieur  de  la  Loir  des 
Ursins,  the  governor  sent  an  order  for  the  Englishman’s  arrest. 
But  this  required  no  little  caution,  in  view  of  the  attitude  of  the 
Indians  toward  him.  ‘We  dared  not  arrest  this  mylord  in  the 
village  of  the  Natchez,’  confessed  Penicaut,  who  delayed  his 
return  to  Natchitoches  to  assist  in  the  capture  of  ‘master  You.’ 
Drifting  down  the  Mississippi  in  April,  Hughes  was  shadowed 
by  the  voyageurs  from  Natchez  to  the  Tonicas  and  to  Manchac. 
There  he  was  taken  into  custody  in  the  name  of  the  French 
king,  protesting  vigorously  against  this  indignity  in  time  of 
peace,  and  was  delivered  with  his  interpreter  to  Bienville  at 
Mobile.  For  three  days,  Penicaut  wrote,  Hughes  was  Bienville’s 
prisoner,  treated  with  every  consideration,  and  then  released  to 
find  his  way  back  to  Carolina.107 

When  Bienville  put  Hughes  upon  his  examination,  a  dra¬ 
matic  moment  had  arrived  in  the  Anglo-French  duel  for  the 
heart  of  America.  Their  talents  in  wilderness  intrigue  so  nearly 
matched,  the  two  men  as  they  talked  together  in  the  stockade 
of  Fort  St.  Louis  in  the  spring  of  1715  stood  for  rival  forces 
of  empire  in  irreconcilable  conflict.  Not  since  the  issues  of 
Anglo-French  rivalry  had  broadened  to  include  control  of  the 
West  and  its  trade  had  two  such  agents  of  French  and  English 
policy  debated  face  to  face.  Why,  asked  Bienville,  have  you 
gone  about  among  all  our  Indians  with  your  presents,  inciting 
them  to  revolt?  Hughes  replied,  so  Bienville  reported  to  Paris, 
‘that  all  this  country  belonged  to  them,  and  that  they  had  a 
better  claim  to  it  than  ours ;  if  we  chose  to  dispute  it  with  them, 
they  would  know  what  to  do.’  He  added,  said  Bienville,  that 
next  autumn  five  hundred  English  families  would  be  settled  by 
the  Crown  on  the  Mississippi.  At  the  moment,  with  their  chief 
agent  in  custody,  and  their  Indian  alliances  already  crumbling, 
the  high  claims  of  the  Carolinians  were  subject  to  heavy  dis¬ 
count.  But  Bienville  was  sufficiently  impressed  to  retain 
Hughes’s  sweeping  commission  from  Craven  to  send  home  as 
evidence  of  English  ambition.  To  avoid  future  disputes,  it  was 

107  Penicaut  in  Margry,  Deconz’ertes,  V.  507-9.  His  chronology  is  con¬ 
fused  ;  the  episode  appears  under  1713. 


107 


QUEEN  ANNE’S  WAR 

highly  important,  he  urged,  that  the  boundaries  should  be  run 
between  Louisiana  and  Carolina.108 

From  Mobile  Hughes  passed  to  Pensacola,  to  enjoy  the 
hospitality  of  Senor  Guzman.  And  then,  alone,  he  set  out  to 
penetrate  the  wilderness  to  the  Alabamas.  Not  far  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Alabama  River  he  was  waylaid  and  killed  by  a 
party  of  Tohome  Indians,  a  tribe  that  had  often  felt  the  scourge 
of  the  Charles  Town  slave-dealers.109  Already  the  wilderness, 
from  Port  Royal  to  the  Mississippi,  was  ringing  with  the  angry 
whoop  of  Indians  leagued  against  the  Carolina  traders.  The 
great  Yamasee-Creek  insurrection  had  begun. 

‘Dieu  rompit  ce  coup,’  a  French  missionary  wrote  of  the 
Carolinian  trading  enterprise  of  1713-1715,  ‘et  par  la  mort  du 
ministre  Yousse,  le  chef  de  leur  ambassade  aux  Indiens  du 
Mississipi  et  par  la  revoke  des  sauvages  des  environs  de  la 
Caroline.’110 

108  Archival  materials  cited  in  note  106. 

109  Ibid.  See  also  MS  map  in  C.O.  Maps.,  N.A.C.  General,  7,  for  the  route 
of  Hughes  and  the  scene  of  his  assassination. 

110  F.  Le  Maire,  Memoire,  1717,  p.  13,  loc.  cit.,  note  105. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Charles  Town  Indian  Trade 

Charles  Town  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  the  one  port- 
town  of  the  South :  the  residence  of  prosperous  merchants  and 
rice-planters,  and  the  seat  of  a  genteel  if  not  yet  a  sophisticated 
society.  But  every  spring  the  tidewater  capital  took  on,  for  a 
few  weeks,  the  aspect  of  the  remote  frontier.  For  Charles 
Town  was  also  the  metropolis  of  the  whole  southern  Indian 
country,  and  it  was  there  that  traders  from  the  mountains  and 
the  Gulf  plains  paid  their  annual  visits  to  civilization. 

Down  the  streets  that  led  to  the  Bay,  bells  jingling,  plodded 
caravans  of  twenty  or  thirty  horses,  three  or  four  servants  in 
charge.  Or  silent  files  of  Indian  burdeners  sought  out  the 
warehouses  of  the  Charles  Town  merchants.  At  the  wharves 
where  London  packets  would  load  with  rice  and  deerskins  now 
lay  periagoes  and  larger  trading-boats,  paddled  by  negroes  or 
Indians  through  river  and  inland  passage  from  Savannah  Town 
or  Augusta.  In  their  offices  Mr.  Benjamin  Godin,  Mr.  John 
Bee,  Mr.  Samuel  Eveleigh,  and  other  promoters  of  the  trade 
reckoned  their  profits  from  last  year’s  ventures  to  the  Cherokee 
or  the  Talapoosa,  or,  perchance,  counted  their  losses  in  some 
ill-starred  Choctaw  enterprise.  Their  shops  were  freshly  stocked 
with  English  woolens  in  bright  colors,  strouds,  duffels,  and 
all  the  baubles  which  would  fill  the  packs  of  the  traders  on 
their  return  journeys.  Taverns  and  punch-houses,  Charlton’s, 
the  Bowling  Green  House,  and  other  haunts  of  the  backwoods¬ 
men,  were  thronged  with  a  roystering  crowd.  ‘Those  sparkes,’ 
wrote  one  who  knew  them  well,  ‘make  little  of  drinking  15  or 
16  £  at  one  Bout  in  Towne.’1  Two  or  three  hundred  Carolinians 
were  engaged  in  the  trade,  and  except  for  the  dealers  with  the 
distant  Choctaw  and  Chickasaw,  each  principal  trader  must  by 
law  renew  his  license  once  a  year.  At  this  season  the  Indian 
commissioners  held  frequent  sessions.  There  were  licenses  to 
approve  or  reject,  charges  lodged  by  the  agents  to  be  heard 
against  cheating  or  abusive  traders,  projects  for  the  reform  of 
the  trade  to  be  considered.  If  the  assembly  were  sitting  traders 
1  S.P.G.  MSS  A,  II,  no.  156  (letter  of  T.  Nairne,  1705). 

[108] 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  109 


might  be  summoned  also  to  the  province-house  to  give  advice 
of  the  situation  on  the  French  or  Spanish  borders.  Not  in¬ 
frequently  a  delegation  of  Indian  chiefs  come  down  to  treat 
for  peace  or  commerce  lent  another  touch  of  color  to  the  annual 
pageant  of  the  southern  wilderness.  Elsewhere  in  the  English 
colonies  only  Albany  could  show  such  scenes. 

Except  that  each  played  a  great  part  in  the  contest  for  the 
continent,  however,  there  was  little  in  common  between  the 
fur  trade  of  New  York  and  of  South  Carolina.  Indeed,  the 
southern  trade  was  not  properly  a  fur  trade  at  all,  but  a  trade 
in  skins  or  leather.  Beaver  and  other  furs  made  small  part  of 
the  returns,  and  were  in  quality  inferior  to  the  thick  pelts  of 
the  northern  forests.  But  Charles  Town  sent  off  to  London  each 
year  great  quantities  of  heavy  deerskins  ;  skins  of  lighter  weight 
were  consumed  at  home  or  shipped  to  the  other  colonies.  A  less 
respectable  branch  of  the  business  was  the  Indian  slave-trade. 
Though  the  early  Indian  wars  had  led  to  the  enslaving  of  In¬ 
dians  in  other  English  colonies,  only  in  South  Carolina  did  the 
traffic  reach  commercial  proportions.  It  was  especially  among 
the  more  distant  tribes,  upon  the  frontiers  of  Florida  and 
Louisiana,  that  the  Carolinians  pushed  their  trade  in  Indian 
captives.  For  the  Charles  Town  traders  from  an  early  day 
penetrated  far  into  the  wilderness,  and  operated  among  tribes 
close  to  the  rival  colonies  of  France  and  Spain.  ‘Charles  Town,’ 
boasted  Archdale  in  1707,  ‘Trades  near  1000  miles  into  the 
Continent.’2  Thus  the  Carolinians  became  notable  explorers, 
whose  feats  had  no  parallel  among  the  English  in  the  North. 
It  was  only  rarely,  as  in  the  well-known  episodes  of  1685-1687, 
and  1692-1694,  that  traders  from  Albany  pierced  the  Iroquois 
blockade  and  ventured  in  person  among  the  western  tribes.  For 
the  Five  Nations,  with  shrewd  commercial  instinct,  jealously 
guarded  the  position  of  middlemen  to  which  they  owed  so  much 
of  their  importance;  the  trade  ran,  normally,  through  Indian 
channels  down  to  Albany.3  In  the  South  neither  Cherokee  nor 
Creeks  could  emulate  the  Long  House.  The  coureurs  de  bois 
of  Canada  have  been  celebrated  as  a  class  without  parallel 
among  the  plodding  English  farmer-folk  of  the  Atlantic  coast. 

2 Carroll  (ed.),  Collections,  II.  97. 

3  See  Wraxall,  Abridgement,  ed.  C.  H.  Mcllwain,  Introduction. 


110 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


But  hundreds  of  English  traders  each  year  ranged  the  forests 
from  the  Savannah  River  to  the  Tennessee  and  the  Yazoo. 
Certainly  in  the  first  generation  of  the  southern  trade  there 
were  pioneers,  like  Thomas  Welch,  whose  feats  of  daring  and 
endurance  challenged  comparison  with  those  of  Tonti’s  men, 
or  Dulhut’s. 

The  Indian  trade  was  a  life  of  adventure,  no  doubt,  but 
primarily  it  was  a  business,  and  the  first  business  to  develop  in 
the  lower  South.  The  Indian  traders,  wrote  John  Lawson 
(1709),  had  ‘soonest  rais’d  themselves  of  any  People  I  have 
known  in  Carolina.’4  Before  rice  became  a  great  staple  the 
products  of  the  Indian  trade  were  almost  the  only  exports  from 
the  struggling  colony.  In  1687,  when  the  inland  trade  was  just 
opening,  but  was  still  mainly  a  slave-trade,  the  Proprietors  re¬ 
ported  that  their  people  had  ‘not  as  yet  produced  any  Comodi- 
tyes  fit  for  the  market  of  Europe  but  a  few  Skins  they  pur¬ 
chased  from  the  native  Indians  and  a  little  Cedar  with  which 
they  helpe  to  fill  the  ship  that  brings  the  skins  for  London, 
both  which  togeather  doe  not  amount  to  the  value  of  Two 
Thousand  pounds  yearely,  and  for  which  London  is  the  best 
Mercat.’5  Nairne,  in  1705,  recalled  ‘that  this  Province  owed  for 
a  long  time  its  Subsistance  to  the  Indian  Trade,  which,’  he 
added,  ‘  is  now  the  main  Branch  of  its  Traffick.’6  Even  as  late 
as  the  mid-century  shipments  of  deerskins  exceeded  in  value 
the  combined  returns  from  indigo,  cattle,  beef  and  pork,  lum¬ 
ber  and  naval  stores.7  The  prosperity  of  South  Carolina,  wrote 


4  Lawson,  History,  1718,  p.  87,  ‘The  Present  State  of  Carolina.’ 

6  C.O.  5:288,  p.  120  (probably  a  report  to  the  Lords  of  Trade).  They 
added  the  following  picture  of  early  Carolina  industry  and  commerce : 
‘The  Cheif  subsistance  of  the  first  Settlers  being  by  Hoggs,  &  Cattle  they 
sell  to  the  New-Comers,  and  with  which  they  purchase  Cloathes,  and 
Tooles  from  them,  and  the  Ships  that  carry  Passengers  from  England 
thither  goe  from  thence  to  Virginea,  Maryland,  or  the  Sugar  Islands  for  a 
Freight  for  England,  and  the  Harbours  of  that  part  of  Carolina  that  hath 
been  longer  settled,  and  borders  on  Virginea,  are  soe  barred  by  sand  that 
shifts  often,  and  thereby  soe  dangerous  to  shipping  that  few  or  none  dare 
venture  thither  and  that  little  Trade  the  few  Inhabitants  that  are  there 
have  is  by  Shallops  from  Virginea  and  New  England.’ 

6  S.P.G.  MSS  A,  II,  no.  156. 

7  James  Glen,  Description,  1761,  pp.  50-55,  reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed.), 
Collections,  II.  234-8  (account  of  exports,  1747-1748).  Rice  produced  about 
three  times  the  returns  from  the  Indian  trade.  Cf.  account  of  exports  1748- 
1749  in  C.O.  5  :372,  I  60.  Total  value  of  exports  was  £1,027,440  6j.  15d. 
currency,  or  £144,777  3s.  9 d.  sterling;  of  deerskins  £187,250  curr. ;  of  rice 
£615,510.  Sterling  exchange  was  about  700  to  100. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  1 1 1 


a  colonial  economist  of  the  mid-century,  had  been  achieved 
from  ‘its  Soil  and  Climate,  producing  a  good  Staple,  the  best  of 
Rice;  and  from  a  neighboring  vast  Indian  Country  affording 
large  Quantities  of  Deer-Skins.’8 

In  contrast  to  the  disappointing  dearth  of  beaver,9  early 
writers  described  vast  numbers  of  deer  in  Carolina  and  the 
hinterland.  ‘There  is  such  infinite  Herds,’  declared  Thomas 
Ashe  in  1682,  ‘that  the  whole  Country  seems  but  one  continued 
Park.’10  The  skins  sent  to  England  were  chiefly  heavy  buck¬ 
skins,  weighing  on  the  average  close  to  two  pounds  when  ‘half- 
dressed,’  or  cured  by  the  Indian  method  of  smoking.  Lighter 
skins,  unfit  for  the  English  domestic  market,  or  for  re-export 
to  Germany,  were  used  in  the  province  or  sold  in  the  northern 
colonies.11  Of  this  intercolonial  trade  there  are  no  adequate  ac¬ 
counts.12  But  for  the  trade  to  England  fairly  reliable  statistics 
may  be  reconstructed  for  practically  the  whole  period  from  1699 
to  1765, 13  when  the  new  British  provinces  of  East  and  West 
Florida  became  rival  centres  of  the  southern  trade.  From  1699 
to  1715  the  average  annual  importation  into  England  from 
Carolina  was  nearly  54,000  deerskins.  Exports  from  year  to 
year  fluctuated  widely,  with  the  fortunes  of  the  Indian  hunters, 
the  vicissitudes  of  intertribal  and  international  warfare,  the 
number  of  traders,  and  other  influences.  The  greatest  number 
purchased  by  the  English  merchants  in  one  year  of  this  period 

8  [William  Douglas],  Postcript  to  a  Discourse  concerning  the  Curren¬ 
cies,  reprinted  in  Currency  Reprints  (Prince  Society  Collections) ,  IV.  52. 

0  In  1699  Great  Britain  imported  from  Carolina  1436  beaver  skins ;  in 
1702,  probably  because  of  an  isolated  attempt  by  several  coureurs  de  hois  of 
Canada,  in  the  preceding  year,  to  find  a  market  in  Carolina  for  the  products 
of  their  illicit  trade,  this  increased  to  2724;  but  in  1711,  during  the  Tuscarora 
War,  which  interfered  with  the  northern  trade,  whence  came  most  of  the 
beaver,  it  declined  to  a  negligible  total  of  36  skins.  In  the  years  immediately 
preceding  the  Yamasee  War,  with  the  expansion  of  the  Cherokee  trade,  there 
was  a  gradual,  and  temporary  increase.  Table  of  ‘Skins  and  Furs  annually 
imported  from  Carolina,  between  Christ:  1698  to  Christmas  1715,’  in  C.O. 
5:1265,  Q  75.  V.  W.  Crane,  in  MVHR,  III.  p.  16  and  note.  By  1747-1748, 
when  the  exports  of  deerskins  were  valued,  in  Carolina  currency,  at  £252,000 
— approximately  £36,000  sterling — the  return  from  beaver  was  a  bare  £300 
provincial  currency.  The  export  of  other,  inferior  furs  was  also  negligible. 
Carroll  (ed.),  Collections,  II.  237. 

10  Ibid.,  p.  72. 

11  Glen  to  Board  of  Trade,  September  29,  1746,  in  C.O.  5  :371,  H  88. 
On  skin  dressing  see  Handbook  of  American  Indians,  II.  591-4. 

12  [T.  Nairne?],  Letter  from  South  Carolina,  1710,  pp.  16  f.,  17;  [F. 
Hall],  Importance  of  the  British  Plantations,  1731,  p.  80. 

13  See  Appendix  A. 


112 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


was  121,355  skins  from  Christmas,  1706,  to  Christmas,  1707. 
In  1716  the  ruin  of  the  trade  as  a  result  of  the  Yamasee  War 
was  revealed  by  the  importation  of  only  4,702  skins.  Under  the 
public  trading  regime,  in  the  period  of  reconstruction,  about  a 
third  of  the  old  traffic  was  recovered.  From  1721  to  1724  the 
resumption  of  the  Creek  trade  and  the  energy  infused  into 
frontier  management  by  Governor  Nicholson  restored  the 
traffic,  temporarily,  to  pre-war  proportions.  But  in  the  next  five 
years  the  troubled  relations  with  the  Creek  confederacy  and, 
around  1728-1730,  with  the  Cherokee,  caused  another  slump. 
The  two  decades  after  1730,  however,  were  a  golden  era  for 
the  Charles  Town  merchants,  drawing  as  they  did  most  of  the 
skins  from  Georgia  as  well  as  from  South  Carolina.  In  1748 
the  province  shipped  off  over  seven  hundred  hogsheads,  con¬ 
taining  approximately  160,000  deerskins.  Governor  Glen  re¬ 
ported  to  the  Board  of  Trade  in  1746  that  ‘the  annual  Export 
of  Deer  Skins  from  this  Port  [Charles  Town]  only,  is  betwixt 
six  and  seven  hundred  Hogsheads ;  each  Hogshead  being  worth 
Fifty  Guineas  in  Charles  Town;  and  to  this  must  be  added  the 
Duty,  Freight,  Insurance,  and  Merchants’  Gains  which  make 
altogether  a  considerable  Sum.’14  There  was  a  falling  off  in  the 
early  1750’s,  but  another  peak  was  reached  in  1763.  These  ex¬ 
ports,  of  course,  represented  a  tremendous  slaughter  of  deer, 
comparable  to  the  great  wastage,  by  a  later  generation,  of  the 
buffalo  of  the  Great  Plains.  Long  before  1763  the  ‘infinite 
herds’  of  the  late  seventeenth  century  must  have  been  seriously 
diminished. 

Of  that  other,  singular  branch  of  the  business,  the  traffic 
in  Indian  slaves,  statistical  records  were  meagre.  In  1702  Iber¬ 
ville  asserted  that  within  the  last  decade  the  Chickasaw  had 
taken  five  hundred  Choctaw  prisoners  at  English  instigation, 
and  had  killed  more  than  three  times  that  many.15  The  French¬ 
man  was  addressing  an  Indian  council,  when  rhetoric  wras  in 
order,  but  the  proportion  of  captives  to  casualties  in  these 
wasting  contests  was  probably  typical.  By  such  attrition  the 
slave-trade,  of  small  economic  significance,  wore  down  the 
barriers  to  the  English  advance.  In  1708,  when  the  total  popu- 

14  C.O.  5  :37 1,  H  88. 

15  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  IV.  517. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  113 


lation  of  South  Carolina  was  9,580,  including  2,900  negroes, 
there  were  1,400  Indian  slaves  held  in  the  province.16  Proba¬ 
bly  the  number  of  Indians  employed  by  the  Carolina  planters 
did  not  greatly  increase  thereafter.  The  parish  of  St.  Thomas 
consisted  in  1722  of  one  hundred  families  who  owned  nine  — 
hundred  to  a  thousand  negroes  and  only  ninety  Indian  slaves.17 
From  an  early  time  the  exportation  of  captured  Indians  was 
favored  both  on  grounds  of  public  policy  and  self-interest.  In¬ 
dian  slaves  were  constantly  escaping  to  the  woods,  and  in  the 
settlements  their  presence  in  any  numbers  raised  the  danger  of 
conspiracies  with  enemy  Indians.  One  of  the  earliest  alarms  of 
a  slave  insurrection  in  the  South  seems  to  have  been  that  of 
1700,  when  some  Indian  slaves  were  suspected  of  a  plot  in 
Carolina.18  The  Indians,  moreover,  were  at  best  poor  workers 
in  the  fields,  though  some  became  skilled  artisans.19  Prices  in 
the  Charles  Town  slave  market  reflected  these  facts.  ‘An  Indian 
Man  or  Woman  may  cost  18  or  20  Pound,’  wrote  a  well-in¬ 
formed  pamphleteer  in  1712,  ‘but  a  good  Negro  is  worth  more 
than  twice  that  Sum.’20  On  all  accounts  it  was  better  to  ship  off 
the  Indians  to  New  England  or  the  West  Indies,  and  to  import 
blacks.  When  the  trade  was  young,  permits  were  issued  during 

16  C.O.  5  :1264,  P  82 :  500  men,  600  women,  300  children. 

17  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  part  1,  p.  103.  In  1726  there  were  60  Indian 
slaves  in  this  parish  (ibid.,  p.  208). 

18  Commissions  and  Instructions,  1685-1715,  1916,  p.  144. 

19  The  Indians,  Lawson  declared,  ‘are  as  apt  to  learn  any  Handicraft,  as 
any  People  that  the  World  affords’ ;  he  referred  to  their  native  crafts  and 
also  to  ‘the  Indian  Slaves  in  South  Carolina.’  History  (1718),  p.  235.  Ad¬ 
vertisements  of  runaway  Indians  in  the  South  Carolina  Gazette  frequently 
mentioned  their  trades,  viz.:  Peter,  ‘both  a  Carpenter  and  Cooper’  (Sep¬ 
tember  11,  1736)  ;  Jack,  ‘by  trade  a  Tanner’  (May  18,  1738)  ;  James,  ‘a 
Cooper  by  Trade’  (December  14,  1747)  ;  Jack,  ‘seems  to  understand  some¬ 
thing  of  the  shoemaker’s  trade’  (June  4,  1753)  ;  Sarah,  ‘brought  up  to 
Household  Work’  (June  17,  1732)  ;  Deborah,  ‘handy  at  Women’s  Work’ 
(November  4,  1732)  ;  ‘a  young  Indian  House  Wench’  (December  15,  1746). 

20  [John  Norris],  Profitable  Advice,  p.  57.  In  his  estimate  of  the  cost 
of  setting  up  a  plantation  with  £1500  capital  this  writer  included  these  items : 

Imprimis:  Fifteen  good  Negro  Men  at  45  1.  each  £675 

Item,  Fifteen  Indian  Women  to  work  in  the  Field, 

at  18  1.  each,  comes  to  270 

Item,  Three  Indian  Women  as  Cooks  for  the  Slaves, 

and  other  Household-Business  55 

For  a  small  plantation  of  100  to  200  acres  he  advised  the-purchase  of  ‘Two 
Slaves :  a  good  Negro  Man  and  a  good  Indian  Woman’  at  £45  and  £18  re¬ 
spectively.  The  housewife  would  have  the  assistance  of  the  Indian  woman, 
they  ‘diligently  Employing  themselves  in  the  careful  Management  of  the 
Dairy,  Hogs,’  etc.  (ibid.,  pp.  88  f.,  93). 


114 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


one  month  (October,  1681)  for  the  transportation  of  forty 
slaves.21  Following  the  Tuscarora  War,  in  1712-1713  export 
duties  were  paid  on  seventy-five  Indians,  but  there  were  com¬ 
plaints  that  this  duty  was  evaded.22  In  1716,  when  the  punish¬ 
ment  of  the  revolted  Indians  was  going  forward  briskly,  duties 
were  levied  on  308  Indian  slaves.23 

The  chief  markets  were  in  the  islands  and  in  New  England. 

In  the  early  eighteenth  century  the  Boston  News  Letter  printed 
frequent  advertisements  of  runaway  Carolina  Indians.  Thus  in 
the  issue  of  September  17,  1711,  five  southern  Indians  were 
described  as  fugitives,  including  ‘a  Carolina  Indian  Man  nam’d 
Toby,’  escaped  from  the  Reverend  Mr.  Samuel  Myles,  ‘a  Caro¬ 
lina  Indian  woman  nam’d  Jenny’  sought  by  Colonel  Thomas 
Savage,  and  three  other  runaways,  two  described  as  ‘Spanish 
Indians,’  advertised  by  less  eminent  masters.  In  1715  Rhode  \ 
Island  passed  a  law  prohibiting  importation  of  Indian  slaves,  \ 
on  the  ground  of  frequent  conspiracies  and  the  discouragement  \ 
of  white  servants  from  Great  Britain.24  Two  Newport  mer-  J 
chants  advertised  in  1717  for  runaway  Carolina  Indians;  one, 
the  property  of  William  Bourden,  was  branded  with  W  on 
one  cheek  and  B  on  the  other. 25<|Thus  Yankee  merchants  and  j 
masters,  before  they  became  great  purveyors  of  blacks  from 
Guinea  to  the  plantation  colonies,  had  made  acquaintance  with 
the  slave-trade  in  their  trafficking  from  Carolina  to  Boston  and 
Newport.  The  southerners  who  supplied  them  with  Indian 
slaves  were  ready  to  justify  this  commerce  by  arguments 
worthy  of  the  ‘saints  of  New  England.’  ‘Some  men  think,’ 
wrote  a  Carolinian,  ‘that  it  both  serves  to  Lessen  their  numbers 
before  the  French  can  arm  them,  and  it  is  a  more  Effectuall 
way  of  Civilising  and  Instructing  [them]  than  all  the  Efforts 
used  by  the  French  Missionaries.’26 

21  Court  of  Ordinary  Records,  1672-1692  (MS). 

22  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  76  (enclosure).  From  contemporary  references  the 
impression  is  created  that  these  scattering  statistics  inadequately  measure 
the  actual  volume  of  the  traffic. 

v  23  JCHA,  December  15,  1716. 

\MR.  I.  Colonial  Records,  IV.  193. 

25  Boston  News  Letter,  July  22,  1717.  Ibid.,  September  29,  1712,  printed 
an  offer  to  sell  ‘a  Carolina  Indian  woman  that  can  do  all  sorts  of  House¬ 
hold  work  well,  and  spin  Linen.’  See  other  advertisements  under  dates  of 
April  22,  1706,  August  27,  December  17,  1711;  March  9,  June  16,  1712; 
September  24,  1716;  March  18,  1717. 

26  C.O.  5:382  (11)  :  Nairne’s  memorial  of  July  10,  1708. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  1 1 5 


In  exchange  for  skins,  furs,  and  Indian  slaves,  the  colonists 
provided  the  Indians  within  the  circuit  of  their  trade  with  the 
usual  variety  of  Indian  trading  goods.  These  were  mainly 
coarse  woolen  cloths  and  hardware  imported  from  Great 
Britain,  which  made  the  business,  as  Nicholson  and  Glen  and 
other  governors  frequently  emphasized,27  of  substantial  im¬ 
portance  to  the  mother  country,  or  at  least  to  the  group  of 
English  merchants  who  traded  to  the  southern  colonies.  By 
1715  the  annual  outlay  for  the  trading  goods  was  said,  on 
excellent  authority,  to  exceed  £10,000  sterling.28  The  trade  also 
brought  some  small  revenue  to  the  Crown,  as  the  colonists 
often  urged  in  their  appeals  for  royal  protection.29 

From  the  historical  standpoint,  however,  the  imperial  sig¬ 
nificance  of  the  Indian  trade  of  South  Carolina  outweighed  its 
mercantilistic  advantages.  Nor  did  this  escape  contemporaries. 
‘The  Indian  trade,’  declared  the  South  Carolina  Gazette  in 
1736,  ‘is  of  the  greatest  Importance  to  the  Wellfare  of  this 
Province,  not  only  as  it  affords  us  near  one  5th  part  of  the 
Returns  we  make  to  Great  Britain  .  .  .  but  principally  as  it  is 
the  Means  by  which  we  keep  and  maintain  the  several  Nations 
of  the  Indians  surrounding  this  Province  in  Amity  and  Friend¬ 
ship  with  us,  and  thereby  prevent  their  falling  into  the  Interest 
of  France  or  Spain.’30  Only  the  excellence  of  the  British  trade 
counterbalanced  the  superior  position  and  diplomacy  of  the 
Spanish  and  the  French.  ‘It’s  no  doubt  very  favourable  for 
the  Inhabitants  of  South  Carolina,’  wrote  one  of  their  agents, 
a  merchant  with  interests  in  the  Indian  trade,  ‘that  Deer  Skins 
the  only  Indian  Produce  are  of  more  value  in  England  than  in 
France  or  Spain  and  in  Consequence  the  Traders  give  a  better 
price  for  them  .  .  .  and  indeed  that  accidental  Advantage  has 
proved  of  more  Service  than  any  presents  given  by  the  British 
Nation  or  Colonies  which  are  in  no  respect  equal  to  what  is 
given  by  the  French  and  Spaniards.’31 

27  See  C.O.  5:359,  B  16;  C.O.  5:371,  H  88. 

“Johnson  to  Board  of  Trade,  January  12,  1720,  in  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  201 

29  The  old  duty  of  6d.  per  pound  was  raised  in  the  Book  of  Rates  of  1725 
to  Is-.  3d.  per  lb.  (House  of  Commons  Journal,  March  16,  1724/5).  Cf. 
Nairne  in  C.O.  5:382  (11). 

30  South  Carolina  Gazette,  July  3,  1736. 

31  James  Crokatt,  memorial  to  Board  of  Trade,  November  10,  1752,  in 
C.O.  5 :374,  K  48. 


116 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


The  progress  of  the  Charles  Town  traders  in  their  contacts, 
first  with  the  coast  tribes,  and  then  with  the  Indians  of  the 
interior,  marked  the  rise  of  a  picturesque  American  business 
and  constituted  an  important  chapter  in  the  Anglo-American 
conquest  of  the  continent.  It  also  produced  among  the  Indians 
an  economic  and  social  revolution.  The  trade  bred  new  habits 
and  ways  of  living,  and  these  bred  dependence  upon  the  white 
man.  An  accurate  measure  of  the  economic,  and  also  the  po¬ 
litical  subjection  of  the  southern  tribes  was  furnished  by  the 
lists  of  goods  which  the  traders  purveyed.  At  first  peak  of 
wampum,  and  a  few  substitutes  for  the  cruder  articles  manu¬ 
factured  by  the  Indians,  made  up  the  traders’  cargoes.  The 
‘Indian  trade’  sent  out  by  the  Proprietors  in  1669  included 
glass  beads,  hatchets,  hoes,  hollowing  adzes,  knives,  ‘sizzard,’ 
and  ‘ten  striped  shirts,’  the  last  as  presents  for  the  chiefs.32 
John  Lawson,  who  wrote  in  1709  of  the  piedmont  tribes,  said 
that  in  general  only  the  great  men  among  the  Indians,  who  had 
plenty  of  deerskins,  bought  the  English  coats,  and  even  they 
refused  to  buy  breeches.  But  nearer  the  settlements  were  In¬ 
dians  who  dressed  in  hats,  shoes,  stockings,  breeches,  and  linen 
shirts  of  English  manufacture.33  These  tastes  spread  rapidly, 
however,  as  the  traders  pushed  westward.  At  the  end  of  the 
first  period  of  the  Carolina  Indian  trade,  in  171 5, 34  a  trader 
bound  up  for  the  Indian  country  carried  in  his  pack-horse  train, 
or  on  the  backs  of  his  Indian  burdeners,  the  coarse  cloth  which 
was  the  staple  of  the  trade  :  bright  red  or  blue  ‘duffield’  blankets, 
‘strouds,’  and  ‘plains’  or  ‘half-thicks’ ;  also  axes,  and  broad 
hoes  with  which  the  Indians  cleared  their  fields  and  cultivated 
their  maize  and  pulse,  salt,  brass  kettles,  hatchets,  fusees  or 
trading-guns,  knives,  flints,  powder  and  bullets  for  war  and 
the  hunt,  tobacco,  pipes,  rum,  red-lead  and  vermilion,  petti¬ 
coats,  scissors,  thread,  needles,  ‘tensy’  lace,  flowered  calico,  red 
girdles,  scarlet  caddice  for  gartering,  linen  shirts,  laced  coats 
and  hats  for  chiefs  and  beloved  men,  and  even  small  looking 
glasses  which  Indian  dandies  affected  to  wear  suspended  by  a 
cord  from  the  neck.  Once  a  demand  for  merchandise  not  manu- 

32  CS  CHS,  V.  149. 

33  History,  1718,  pp.  191  f. 

34  The  list  is  compiled  from  a  variety  of  sources,  chiefly  the  Indian  com¬ 
missioners’  journals. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  117 


factured  by  the  Indians  was  created,  or  the  native  industries 
had  fallen  into  disuse,  a  threat  to  cut  off  the  trade  was  often 
sufficient  to  bring  a  recalcitrant  tribe  to  terms.  This  was  es¬ 
pecially  true  when  the  Indians  had  been  supplied  with  arms 
and  ammunition.  The  early  efforts  to  prevent  the  trade  in  those 
articles  had  been  futile.  Motives  of  policy  combined  with 
motives  of  greed  to  promote  it.  By  1715  munitions  had  become 
with  cloth — and  rum — the  chief  commodities  of  the  forest 
trade. 

In  1725  Tobias  Fitch  was  sent  as  agent  to  the  Creeks  to 
counteract  the  influence  which  the  Spanish  and  French  had 
won  since  the  Yamasee  War.  ‘I  must  tell  your  Young  Men,’  he 
shrewdly  declaimed  in  the  upper  towns,  ‘that  had  it  not  been 
for  us  they  would  not  have  known  how  to  Warr  nor  yet  have 
anything  to  Warr  with;  for  before  we  came  among  you,  there 
was  no  other  weapons  than  Bows  and  Arrows  to  hunt  with, 
you  could  Hunt  a  whole  day  and  bring  nothing  Home  at  Night, 
you  had  no  other  Hoes  or  Axes  than  Stones,  you  wore  nothing 
but  Skins ;  but  now  we  have  learnt  you  the  use  of  fire  Arms, 
as  well  to  kill  Deer,  and  other  Provisions,  as  to  Warr  against 
your  Enemies.’  ‘This  you  that  are  Old  Men  know  to  be  true,’ 
Fitch  concluded,  ‘and  I  would  have  you  make  your  Young 
Men  Sensible  of  it.’35  It  was  an  Indian,  the  head  warrior  of 
Tennessee,  who,  according  to  Colonel  Chicken,  agent  at  the 
same  period  among  the  Cherokee,  ‘got  up  and  made  the  follow¬ 
ing  Speech  to  me  and  the  People  of  the  Town.  “That  they  must 
now  mind  and  Consider  that  all  their  Old  men  were  gone,  and 
that  they  have  been  brought  up  after  another  Manner  than  their 
forefathers  and  that  they  must  Consider  that  they  could  not 
live  without  the  English.”  ’36  Not  often  did  the  oratory  of  the 
round  house  strike  so  close  to  the  realities  of  Indian  politics. 
Here  was  revealed,  of  course,  the  whole  basis  of  English  in¬ 
fluence  among  the  southern  Indians. 

The  Charles  Town  Indian  trade  passed  through  several 
fairly  distinct  stages  of  organization.  Roughly  these  corre¬ 
sponded  to  periods  in  border  history  and  in  the  evolution  of 
colonial  commerce. 

35  JC,  August  24,  1725,  and  more  briefly  in  Mereness  (ed.),  Travels,  p.  181. 

30  Ibid.,  pp.  112  f. 


118 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


During  the  first  decade  the  Lords  Proprietors  attempted  to 
turn  the  traffic  with  the  Indians  into  a  source  of  dividends  upon 
their  investment.  The  early  trade,  both  proprietary  and  private, 
was  a  plantation  trade.  ‘All  the  considerable  Planters,’  wrote  an 
early  pamphleteer,  ‘have  an  Indian  hunter  which  they  hire  for 
less  than  twenty  shillings  a  year.’37  It  was  his  duty  to  supply 
the  plantation  with  game  and  peltries,  but  other  Indians  also 
resorted  to  the  plantations  for  trade.  Thomas  Ashe  wrote  in 
1682  that  he  had  ‘often  heard  Captain  Matthews,  an  ingenious 
Gentleman,  and  Agent  to  Sir  Peter  Colleton  for  his  Affairs  in 
Carolina  [declare]  that  one  hunting  Indian  has  yearly  kill’d 
and  brought  to  his  Plantation  more  than  an  100,  sometimes  200 
head  of  Deer.'38  Disappointed  in  the  meagre  returns  from 
Ashley  River,  Shaftesbury  in  1674  projected  his  abortive  Edisto 
Island  settlement,  and  declared  to  the  Charles  Town  govern¬ 
ment  his  unwillingness  ‘to  be  controulled  by  you  in  my  dealing 
or  trade  with  any  of  the  Indians.’39  The  same  year  Woodward 
opened  the  Westo  trade,  which  was  carried  on  from  Shaftes¬ 
bury’s  plantation  of  St.  Giles’  Kusso,  and  from  Sir  Peter  Colle¬ 
ton’s  Fairlawn  plantation,  so  well  located  for  the  interior  trade 
on  the  western  branch  of  the  Cooper  River.  In  1677  the  Pro¬ 
prietors  issued  their  order  establishing  a  monopoly  for  seven 
years  with  ‘the  Westoes,  Cussatoes,  Spaniards,  or  other  Indians 
that  live  beyond  Porte  Royall,  or  at  the  same  distance  from  our 
present  settlement.’  To  carry  it  on,  Albemarle,  Craven,  Claren¬ 
don,  Sir  Peter  Colleton,  and  Shaftesbury,  then  in  the  Tower, 
formed  a  joint-stock  with  subscriptions  of  £100;  Shaftesbury’s 
contract  of  1674  with  Woodward  was  taken  over.40  The  trade 
along  the  coast  as  far  as  Port  Royal  and  inland  for  one  hun¬ 
dred  miles  was  left  open  to  the  planters,  and  the  nearby  Indians 
resorted  to  the  plantation  houses  with  their  peltry.  But  friction 
developed;  the  private  traders  controlled  the  assembly,  and 
through  the  Westo  War  they  broke  down  the  proprietary 
monopoly.  It  was  not  until  1691,  however,  that  instructions 

37  [Samuel  Wilson],  Account  of  the  Province  of  Carolina,  1682,  p.  12; 
reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed.),  Collections,  II.  28. 

38  T.  A[she],  Carolina,  1682,  p.  21 ;  reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed.),  Collections, 
II.  72. 

39  CSCHS,  V.  439-46,  468. 

40C.O.  5:286,  pp.  120  f.  (in  Rivers,  Sketch  pp  388-90). 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  1 19 


were  sent  to  the  governor  that  he  should  ‘suffer  all  persons  that 
will,  freely  to  trade  with  the  Indians.’41 

Meanwhile,  the  trade  had  fallen  largely  into  the  hands  of  a 
few  enterprising  planters,  who  sent  factors  into  the  Indian 
country,  men  who,  in  Lawson’s  phrase,  ‘travel  and  abide 
amongst  the  Indians  for  a  long  space  of  time.’42  Such  was 
already  the  organization  of  the  Virginia  Indian  trade.  William 
Byrd  of  Westover,  son  of  one  of  the  great  Virginia  trader- 
planters  of  the  seventeenth  century,  said  that  ‘the  Common 
Method  of  carrying  on  this  Indian  Commerce  is  as  follows : 
Gentlemen  send  for  Goods  proper  for  such  a  Trade  from  Eng¬ 
land,  and  then  either  Venture  them  out  at  their  own  Risk  to  the 
Indian  Towns,  or  credit  some  Traders  with  them  of  Substance 
and  Reputation,  to  be  paid  in  Skins  at  a  certain  Price  agreed 
betwixt  them.’43 

Among  the  Carolinians  who  emulated  Abraham  Wood,  the 
elder  Byrd,  and  Cadwallader  Jones,  were  several  early  notables. 
As  surveyor-general  Maurice  Mathews  carried  through  the 
extinction  of  Indian  titles  south  to  the  Savannah  and  west  to 
the  mountains;  as  agent  for  Colleton  he  early  became  an  ex¬ 
tensive  trader.  He  was  named  by  the  Proprietors  with  Percival 
to  reopen  the  peltry  trade  interrupted  by  the  Westo  War.44  But 
with  James  Moore  he  soon  incurred  the  displeasure  of  the  Pro¬ 
prietors  for  slave-dealing;  both  were  removed  from  all  their 
offices.  Mathews  had  powerful  friends  in  England,  but  Moore, 
an  indigent  Barbadian  gentleman  with  numerous  dependents, 
apparently  owed  his  rise  to  his  own  restless  energy.  As  manager 
of  the  plantations  of  Captain  William  Walley  and  of  Lady  Mar¬ 
garet  Yeamans,  whom  he  prudently  married,  Moore  launched 
into  cattleraising  and  Indian  trading  on  a  large  scale.  In  1690 
he  made  his  journey  to  the  Cherokee,  seeking  mines  as  well  as 
trade.45  Both  Mathews  and  Moore  shrewdly  combined  politics 
with  business.  In  1685  the  Proprietors  complained  that  the 
slave-dealers  by  the  ‘packing  of  parliaments  and  the  grand 

41  C.O.  5  :288,  p.  195. 

42  Lawson,  History,  1718,  p.  184. 

43  Byrd,  Writings,  Bassett  (ed.),  p.  235. 

44  R.  F„  Present  State,  1682,  p.  11;  C.O.  5:286,  p.  164;  CSCHS,  V.  332 
note. 

46  R.  F.,  Present  State,  1682,  p.  10;  C.O.  5:288,  p.  288;  JCHA,  April  2, 
1702;  CSCHS,  V.  463  note. 


120 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Councell  .  .  .  have  made  warrs  and  peace  with  the  Indians  as 
it  best  suited  their  private  advantage  in  trade.’46  The  close 
alliance  of  politics  and  Indian  trading  was  also  seen  in  the  at¬ 
tempts  of  successive  governors  to  monopolize  the  trade. 

\The  hey-day  of  the  planter  interest  was  the  quarter-century 
following  the  Westo  Wa£>  At  an  early  date  Colonel  Stephen 
Bull  traded  northward  as  far  as  Cape  Fear.47  In  the  decade  pre¬ 
ceding  the  Yamasee  War,  Landgrave  Thomas  Smith  was  fre¬ 
quently  in  collision  with  the  council  and  the  Indian  board  over 
the  licensing  of  his  traders  to  the  northern  tribes.48  Another 
leading  employer  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  century  was 
Colonel  Thomas  Broughton.  The  son-in-law  of  Sir  Nathaniel 
Johnson,  he  enjoyed,  for  a  time,  a  privileged  position  in  the 
trade.49  Like  Broughton’s  Mulberry  plantation,  Peter  St. 
Julien’s  place  near  Dorchester  was  convenient  both  to  the 
Cherokee  path  by  way  of  Congaree  and  to  the  Savannah  Town 
route.50  An  important  rival  of  Moore  in  the  southern  trade 
was  James  Stanyarne,  a  wealthy  planter  of  Colleton  county. 
Though  largely  engaged  in  dealing  with  the  Yamasee,  Stan¬ 
yarne  also  sent  traders  inland  as  far  as  the  Talapoosas.51 

Early  in  the  new  century  the  privileged  position  of  the 
governors  and  the  great  planters  of  the  council  in  the  Indian 
trade  was  being  undermined.  In  1707  Governor  Johnson  com¬ 
plained  of  ‘the  Multitude  of  Indian  traders  that  now  more  and 
more  pester  the  Trade  with  their  Numbers  for  their  own  ad¬ 
vantage.’52  That  year  the  Commons  House  wrested  the  regula¬ 
tion  of  the  trade  from  the  upper  house.  <^.t  Charles  Town, 
moreover,  there  was  developing  a  class  of  merchants  unique  in 
the  South;  inevitably  they  succeeded  to  the  dominance  of  the 
southern  Indian  trade.  From  a  profitable  side-line  of  the  planter 
and  cattle-rancher,  it  became  a  mercantile  interest  second  only 
to  the  exportation  of  rice.  Most  of  the  Charles  Town  merchants 

M  C.O.  5 :288,  p.  52. 

"Archdale,  Description,  1707,  p.  21,  reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed.),  Collec 
tions,  II.  108. 

48JCHA,  December  16,  1708;  JIC,  October  6,  1713;  March  25,  May  6, 
1714. 

"  See  pp.  146-7. 

50  JIC,  August  19,  1713,  May  5,  20,  1714. 

51JCHA,  January  15,  September  2,  1703;  November  4,  1709.  John  Ash, 
Present  State  of  Affairs. 

"  JCHA,  March  6,  1707. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  121 

in  the  eighteenth  century  were  in  some  degree  concerned  in  it.\ 
The  following  were  conspicuous  in  the  first  quarter-century 
for  their  frontier  interests  :  Andrew  Allen  and  his  partner,  Wil¬ 
liam  Gibbon;  Benjamin  Godin,  the  Goose  Creek  planter  and 
Charles  Town  merchant,  whose  family  connection  included 
several  London  merchants  trading  to  Carolina ;  his  partner. 
Benjamin  de  la  Conseilliere;  Isaac  Mazyck;  Charles  Hill  and 
Company;  Walter  Lougher;  Samuel  Wragg,  nephew  of  a 
London  merchant;  John  Bee;  and  notably  Samuel  Eveleigh, 
‘of  South  Carolina  and  Bristol,  merchant.’53  For  the  later  years 
the  list  was  a  roster  of  the  little  business  world  of  Broad  and 
Tradd  streets.  Among  the  conspicuous  names  were  Greene, 
Godin,  Hill,  Catell,  Pringle,  Savage,  Croft,  Bedon,  Beale,  At¬ 
kins,  Crokatt,  Grimke,  Osmond,  Motte,  Yeomans,  Broughton, 
Horry,  Smallwood,  and  Roche.54  Most  of  these  men  were  im¬ 
porters  of  Indian  trading  goods  and  exporters  of  furs  and 
deerskins.  Some  were  also  actual  undertakers  in  the  trade. 
Jordan  Roche  was  perhaps  the  only  merchant  who  had  lived 
as  a  factor  among  the  Indians;  in  his  youth  he  had  traded  to 
the  Chickasaw.55  John  Bee  maintained  a  trading  factory  on  the 
upper  Ocmulgee  for  some  years  after  the  desertion  of  the 
Lower  Creeks,  and  in  1725  took  out  licenses  for  ‘a  parcel  of 
traders’  to  the  Choctaw.50 

Probably  no  merchant  in  South  Carolina  was  so  long  or 
so  extensively  engaged  in  the  business  as  Samuel  Eveleigh. 

63  The  list  is  compiled  chiefly  from  the  Indian  commissioners’  journals, 
1710,  1716-1718.  The  family  and  trading  connections  of  several  of  these 
merchants  with  London  firms  probably  led  the  author  of  The  Importance 
of  the  British  Plantations  in  America,  1731,  to  assert  (p.  66)  that  ‘the 
Indian  Trade  there  being  of  such  exceeding  Advantage,  and  frequently  car¬ 
ried  on  by  the  Servants  of  those  who  live  here,  all  the  Profits  thereof  are 
sent  here  by  those  who  design  to  return  to  this  Kingdom.’  This  statement 
led  Channing  in  his  excellent  brief  description  of  the  southern  trade 
( History ,  II.  551)  to  overemphasize  the  direct  British  interest.  I  have  not 
been  able  to  discover  that  it  was  in  anywise  differentiated  from  the  Caro¬ 
lina  trade  as  a  whole.  On  the  Wraggs  see  SCHGM,  XIX.  121. 

51  Compiled  from  assembly  journals,  advertisements  in  South  Carolina 
Gazette,  and  from  the  following  documents  in  particular :  memorial  of 
Charles  Town  merchants  regarding  Georgia’s  interference  in  the  trade, 
July  4,  1735,  C.O.  5:365,  F  14;  schedule  of  debts  due  by  Georgia  traders, 
JCHA,  December  15,  1737;  petition  to  governor  and  council,  JC,  September 
5,  1749. 

55 JCHA,  March  1,  1734;  JC,  December  14,  1747 ;  Glover’s  journal, 
1728,  in  C.O.  5  :387. 

58  Fitch  to  Middleton,  Kasihta,  October  1,  1725,  in  JC,  November  2,  1725. 


122 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Instead  of  employing  factors  at  wages,  like  Bee,  Eveleigh  en¬ 
gaged  on  a  large  scale  in  supplying  traders  to  the  Creeks  and 
the  Cherokee  with  trading  goods  on  credit.  Consequently,  he 
was  more  than  a  little  interested  in  the  machinery  of  Indian 
regulation,  one  of  the  chief  functions  of  which  was  to  secure  the 
merchants  against  defalcation  of  the  traders  or  thefts  by  the 
Indians.  From  1712  to  the  Yamasee  War  Eveleigh  was  a  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  Indian  board.57  By  later  acts  the  Indian  commis¬ 
sioners  were  forbidden  to  engage  in  trade  during  their  in¬ 
cumbency;  but  through  membership  in  the  council,58  or  press¬ 
ure  on  the  assembly  and  the  commissioners,  the  merchants  were 
still  powerful  in  Indian  management.  In  January,  1731,  Eve¬ 
leigh  presented  to  the  council  a  memorial  complaining  that  the 
Creeks  had  robbed  one  Thomas  Duvall,  a  Cherokee  trader,  of 
800  lbs.  of  leather.  When  the  council  resolved  to  order  restitu¬ 
tion,  it  was  Eveleigh  who  named  the  traders  proper  to  carry  it 
out.  A  few  months  later  he  opposed  the  selection  of  Tobias  Fitch 
as  agent  to  the  Creek  nation,  asserting  that  he  had  great  con¬ 
cerns  in  trade  which  would  suffer  by  Fitch’s  appointment  and 
charging  him  with  mismanagement  when  formerly  in  office. 
The  Indian  act  was  delayed  nearly  a  month  while  a  committee 
of  the  Commons  took  depositions  of  traders  and  heard  Fitch’s 
reply.  He  admitted  a  project  for  a  trading  partnership  with 
Charlesworth  Glover  at  the  end  of  his  agency,  but  denied  ‘that 
he  had  ever  formed  a  scheme  of  trade  with  the  Choctaw  In¬ 
dians  or  to  engross  or  monopolize  the  whole  of  the  Southern 
Trade  in  conjunction  with  Col.  Glover.’  After  once  striking 
out  Fitch’s  name  from  the  bill,  the  assembly  restored  it  a  few 
days  later.  But  Fitch,  possibly  in  view  of  the  opposition,  refused 
the  office.59 

To  a  merchant  with  Eveleigh’s  stake  in  the  trade,  friendly 

"He  first  attended  on  June  27,  1712.  Next  day  the  board  delivered  to 
the  Indian  agent  ‘Accots.  of  Several  Debts  due  from  Mr.  Richd.  Gower  to 
Samuel  Eveleigh,  Esqr.,  Mr.  Andrew  Allen,  and  Mr.  Porter  to  be  recovered 
by  the  Agent’  (JIC). 

“Smith,  S.  C.  as  a  Royal  Province,  1719-1776,  pp.  234,  330  (control  of 
council  by  merchants). 

58  JC,  January  1,  1730/1;  JCHA,  June  26,  July  9,  14,  22,  24.  1731.  See 
also  Mereness  (ed.),  Travels,  pp.  119,  141;  and  record  of  Eveleigh’s  will 
(1766)  in  SCHGM,  XII.  216.  Eveleigh  was  later  a  commercial  agent  for 
the  Georgia  Trustees  at  Charles  Town,  and  named  one  of  his  vessels,  a 
schooner  in  the  West  Indian  trade,  the  Oglethorpe  (C.O.  5  :509). 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  123 


relations  with  the  Indians  were  quite  as  important  as  to  the 
provincial  government.  In  June,  1732,  a  delegation  of  Creek 
chiefs  was  visiting  Charles  Town.  ‘Yesterday,’  the  Gazette 
chronicled,  ‘the  Head  Men  of  the  Indians  now  in  Town  were 
plentifully  entertained  at  Dinner,  by  Mr.  Eveleigh,  at  his 
House,  who  carried  them,  in  the  Afternoon,  on  board  the  ‘Fox' 
Man-of-War  with  the  sight  of  which  they  seemed  mighty  well 
pleased.  The  civilities  showed  to  these  Indians  by  Mr.  Eve¬ 
leigh,’  the  writer  continued,  ‘are  not,  we  believe,  (as  some 
would  suggest)  from  any  private  Views  of  Interest  to  himself, 
but  a  general  design  of  promoting  a  good  understanding,  and 
consequently  our  Trade  with  them.  It  being  the  known  Artifice 
of  the  French  and  Spaniards,  who  have  dealings  with  the 
same  Persons,  to  trick  us  out  of  our  Trade,  by  Excelling  in 
smooth-faced  Strategems  of  this  Kind.’60 

<The  profits  of  the  trade  accrued  mainly  to  the  Charles 
Town  merchants  and  their  London  correspondents.  -'  Among 
other  classes,  especially  the  planters,  there  developed  a  certain 
resentment  that  the  heavy  expense  of  Indian  management,  the 
largest  single  charge  against  the  public,  was  incurred  for  the 
profit  of  a  small  privileged  group.  In  1736  the  Georgians  were 
attempting  to  divert  the  inland  Indian  trade  to  Savannah,  and 
to  regulate  from  that  province  all  intercourse  with  the  Chero¬ 
kee  and  Creek  Indians.  Oglethorpe  appealed  to  the  non-com¬ 
mercial,  or  anti-commercial,  sentiment  in  South  Carolina  in  his 
letter  to  Lieutenant-Governor  Broughton  of  June  5,  1736: 
‘Notwithstanding  the  Artifices  of  a  few  designing  Men  you 
will  Joyn  with  me  in  judging,  that  our  Taking  the  Indian  Trade 
with  the  Expense  of  treating  with  the  Indians,  is  taking  off  a 
Burthen  from  the  Province  of  Carolina :  the  Public  there  hav¬ 
ing  been  at  all  the  Expense  and  a  few  private  Merchants  only 
receiving  the  Benefit.’61  But  the  merchants  prevailed  in  the  as¬ 
sembly,  and  the  measures  outlined  in  the  memorial  of  thirty-one 
Charles  Town  merchants,62  ‘all  more  or  less  Concerned  in  the 
said  Trade,  either  Trading  thither  directly  or  in  furnishing 
Goods  for  the  said  Trade,’  were  embodied  in  an  ordinance  for 
its  defense.  - 

60  South  Carolina  Gazette,  June  10,  1732. 

61 JCHA,  X.  272-4. 

“C.O.  5:365,  F  14. 


124 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Thus  began  the  bitter  and  protracted  conflict  between 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina  for  the  control  of  the  western 
trade.  Though  the  controversy  was  carried  home  to  the  Privy 
Council,  it  was  actually  determined  less  by  the  arguments  of 
lawyers  and  agents  in  Whitehall  than  by  the  commercial  pre¬ 
ponderance  of  Charles  Town  in  the  South.  Though  some  of  the 
Carolina  traders  now  transferred  their  headquarters  to  Au¬ 
gusta,  and  took  out  licenses  at  Savannah,  the  old  lines  of  trade 
were  little  disturbed.  The  trading-boats  which  brought  the 
skins  down  the  Savannah  River  from  the  new  entrepot  at 
Augusta  usually  passed  right  by  the  empty  wharves  of  Sa¬ 
vannah,  or  only  called  there  on  their  way  to  Charles  Town, 
which  remained  until  after  1763  the  mart  of  the  whole  southern 
Indian  trade.63 

In  their  memorial  of  1735  the  Charles  Town  merchants  had 
sought  to  prove  ‘that  the  said  Trade  is  of  a  particular  advantage 
to  this  Province  in  regard  to  the  poorer  sort  of  People  there 
being  no  less  than  three  Hundred  who  find  constant  employ¬ 
ment  therein.’xThese  were  the  traders  with  the  Indians,  a  pic¬ 
turesque  element  in  the  population  of  the  southern  border*- 
Even  two  decades  before,  by  official  estimate  there  had  been 
‘one  way  or  Other  near  200  English  Indian  traders  Imployed 
as  Factors  by  the  Merchants  of  Carolina.’64  A  few  clearly  be¬ 
longed  to  a  class  above  ‘the  poorer  sort  of  People.’65  There  was 
Jordan  Roche,  who  became  a  merchant;  John  Musgrove,  a 
member  of  the  Commons  House;  Theophilus  Hastings,  a 
militia  officer  and  frontier  fighter ;  and,  at  a  later  period,  the 
extraordinary  figure  of  the  historiographer  of  the  southern 
Indians,  James  Adair.  But  most,  even  of  the  principal  traders, 
were  poor  and  illiterate,  chronic  debtors,  true  types  of  the  first 
American  frontier.  Notoriously  they  were  ‘not  (generally)  Men 
of  the  best  Morals.’66  The  journals  of  the  assembly  and  of  the 
Indian  board  were  filled  with  severest  strictures  on  their  ‘Bar¬ 
barous,  .  .  .  Imorall  and  unjust  way  of  Liveing  and  Deale- 

63  See  William  Stephens,  Journal,  1752,  II.  90,  156,  258,  282,  377. 

wC.O.  5:1265,  Q  201. 

65  Warrants  for  Lands,  1692-1711,  pp.  218,  241,  show  that  Thomas  Welch 
owned  a  plantation  near  Round  O  Savannah  in  1709;  and  that  in  1711  he 
received  warrants  for  300  and  400  acres  in  Colleton  county.  John  Jones  re¬ 
ceived  warrants,  in  1692-1696,  for  1100  acres  (ibid.,  pp.  22,  53,  54,  109,  111). 

66  Yonge,  Narrative,  1726,  reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed. ) ,  Collections ,  II.  145. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  125 


ing,’  with  allegations  that  ‘the  Lewdness  and  wickedness  of 
them  have  been  a  Scandall  to  the  Religion  wee  Profess.’67 
Though  many  of  the  old  traders,  for  their  sins,  lost  their  lives 
in  the  debacle  of  1715,  their  successors  were  no  more  ex¬ 
emplary.  One  of  their  worst  traits,  from  the  merchants’  stand¬ 
point,  was  financial  irresponsibility.  Unfortunate  wretches  there 
were  whose  great  debts  to  the  Charles  Town  merchants  made 
them  exiles  for  many  years  in  the  Indian  country ;  when  some 
crisis  required  their  presence  in  Charles  Town  it  was  necessary 
for  the  assembly  to  publish  a  moratorium.68  The  names  of  most 
of  these  obscure  pioneers  of  empire  in  the  South  have  perished, 
but  in  the  period  before  1715  about  one  hundred  traders  were 
named  in  the  records  by  reason  of  their  public  services,  or, 
more  commonly,  their  misdemeanors.  About  as  many  are 
known  for  the  years  from  1715  to  1732.  In  the  early  century 
most  were  of  English  origin,  with  a  sprinkling  of  Scotch  and 
Irish,  and  a  conspicuous  absence  of  the  thrifty  and  stable 
Huguenots.  Evidently  the  restless  and  indigent  members  of  the 
English-Barbadian  community,  and  servants  whose  terms  of 
indenture  had  expired,  drifted  back  into  the  wilderness.  In  the 
later  period,  and  markedly  as  the  century  advanced,  the  licenses 
issued  at  Charles  Town  bore  such  names  as  Campbell,  Dough¬ 
erty,  Gillespie,  McGillivray,  McKinney,  McIntosh,  MacDonald, 
McCormick,  Millikin,  McBain,  and  the  like. 

A  trader’s  life,  though  one  of  danger  and  especially  of  hard¬ 
ships,  rewarded  usually  with  poverty,  was  not  without  its  lure. 
James  Adair,  for  forty  years  a  trader  among  the  Cherokee 
and  Chickasaw  Indians,  typified  the  fascination  of  the  southern 
wilderness  for  those  who  had  once  followed  its  paths  in  the 
legend  of  Major  Herbert’s  spring.  There  were  even  rude  com¬ 
forts  to  be  had  in  the  Indian  towns,  which  abounded,  Adair 
wrote,  ‘with  hogs,  poultry,  and  every  thing  sufficient  for  the 
support  of  a  reasonable  life.’  Most  traders  took  Indian  wives, 
who  dressed  their  victuals  and  taught  them  the  Indian  tongue. 
‘Such  a  man,’  said  Lawson,  ‘gets  a  great  Trade  with  the  Sav¬ 
ages.’  Among  the  Indians  the  traders  enjoyed  an  influence  which 

67  As  in  JCHA,  April  2,  November  16,  1700.  See  article  xvi  of  the 
Indian  act  of  1719,  in  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes ,  III.  91. 

68  See  JCHA,  November  21,  1706,  and  Indian  Book  (MS)  II.  135  (peti¬ 
tion  of  a  trader  in  1751). 


126 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


tempted  some  to  play  the  petty  tyrant,  with  disastrous  results. 
But  so  long  as  ‘they  kept  them  busily  employed,  and  did  not 
make  themselves  too  cheap,  the  Indians,’  by  Adair’s  account, 
‘bore  them  good-will  and  respect.’69 

Each  principal  trader,  except  such  ‘poor,  loose  and  vaga¬ 
bond  persons’  as  were  only  able  to  get  ‘credit  for  rum  and 
small  quantitys  of  goods,’70  employed  at  least  one  packhorse- 
man  as  his  assistant  to  look  after  six  or  seven  horses  and  their 
burdens.  Sometimes  this  work  was  performed  by  indented 
servants,  sometimes,  though  the  government  disapproved,  by 
negro  or  Indian  slaves,  but  usually  a  trader’s  man  was  hired  at 
wages.71  The  average  outfit  in  the  Creek  trade  in  the  early 
thirties  consisted  of  three  or  four  men  and  twenty  to  thirty 
horses,  and  this  was  probably  characteristic.  When  William 
Byrd  wrote  of  caravans  of  a  hundred  horses  setting  out  across 
the  piedmont  from  the  falls  of  the  James  under  the  conduct 
of  fifteen  or  sixteen  persons72  he  probably  described  the  outfits 
of  several  traders,  who  sought  protection  in  company.  To  be 
sure,  there  were  Charles  Town  trading-firms  which  sent  out 
quite  as  imposing  trains  as  any  that  came  from  north  of  the 
Roanoke.  Archibald  McGillivray  and  Company  employed  one 
hundred  and  three  horses  between  New  Windsor  and  the 
Creeks,  in  charge  of  fifteen  pack-horsemen  besides  the  principal 
traders.  In  1747,  when  the  Choctaw  ‘Revolution’  opened  a 
prospect  of  winning  that  tribe  from  the  French,  a  company 
formed  by  Charles  McNaire  and  several  other  traders,  with 
the  backing  of  the  Roches,  sent  up  a  caravan  of  two  hundred 
horses,  in  a  venture  at  once  political  and  commercial,  to  the 
farthest  trading  frontier  of  the  English  in  America.73 

“James  Adair,  History  of  the  American  Indians,  1775,  pp.  230  f. 

70  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  231. 

71[Nairne?],  A  Letter  from  South  Carolina,  1710,  pp.  54  f.,  describing 
‘the  usual  Wages  and  Prices  of  Labour,’  listed  overseers  at  £15  to  £40  cur¬ 
rency  per  annum,  and  ‘such  as  are  employ’d  to  trade  with  the  Indians  from 
20  to  100  1.’  In  1718,  during  the  public  trade,  packhorsemen  were  paid  £10 
currency  per  month,  with  an  allowance  of  7s.  6 d.  for  board  while  in  Charles 
Town.  JIC,  April  12,  May  3,  29,  1718.  The  act  of  1719,  in  Cooper  (ed.), 
Statutes,  III.  89,  proposed  to  hire  thirty  free  men  at  not  more  than  100  lb. 
weight  of  skins  per  year,  and  to  engage  thirty  servants.  In  1725  the  council 
complained  that  the  Indian  traders  were  enticing  men  away  from  the  gar¬ 
risons  by  offering  them  higher  wages  (JCHA,  March  18,  1724/5). 

72  Byrd,  Writings  (Bassett,  ed.),  p.  235. 

73  C.O.  5:373,  K  34  (examination  of  John  Vann). 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  127 


Trading  companies  were  in  fact  very  common,  and  some 
were  of  a  more  or  less  permanent  characterAOn  the  eve  of  the 
Yamasee  War,  Richard  Gower  and  William  Britt,  and  John 
Chester  and  Weaver  were  leading  dealers  among  the  Creeks. 
Card,  Skeel  and  Wiggins,  Trumbull  and  Richardson,  Holford, 
Peirce  and  Griffin,  John  Graves  and  Joseph  Cundry  were  other 
companies  of  that  period.  Henry  Gustin  and  Laughlin  McBain 
traded  to  the  Cherokee  in  the  second  quarter-century,  John 
McGillivray  and  Company  to  the  Creeks.  The  most  considerable 
partnership  in  the  Carolina  trade  toward  the  mid-century  was 
the  firm  of  Archibald  McGillivray  and  Company.  Besides  Mc¬ 
Gillivray,  ‘sole  manager  and  director,’  the  company  included 
the  well-known  traders  Isaac  Motte  of  New  Windsor,  William 
Sludders,  Jeremiah  Knott,  and  George  Cussings.  In  1747 
another  leading  Creek  firm,  that  of  Alexander  Wood  and 
Patrick  Brown,  was  taken  into  the  combine.  Besides  effecting 
economies,  such  companies  were  able  to  parcel  out  the  Indian 
towns,  creating  a  partial  or  complete  monopoly  which  was 
sometimes  confirmed  by  the  provincial  government.  In  this  way 
cut-throat  competition  was  abated  in  the  Indian  country.74 

The  equipment  of  the  trade  was  simple.  The  pack-horses 
were  Indian-bred,  or  raised  by  the  traders  in  the  Indian 
country.  Cherokee  horses  were  in  common  use ;  these  were  ex¬ 
cellent  animals,  said  Adair,  ‘of  a  good  size,  well-made,  hard- 
hoofed,  handsome,  strong  and  fit  for  the  saddle  or  draught.’75 
On  the  down  journey  each  horse  was  laden  with  three  packs. 
An  estimate  for  a  cargo  of  presents  to  the  Choctaw  in  1751 
throws  light  upon  the  cost  of  transportation  to  the  more  distant 
Indians.  ‘I  compute,’  said  the  contractor,  ‘that  carriage  of  the 
said  goods  will  take  up  35  horses,  and  that  a  horse  will  be 
burdened  with  150  wt.  so  then  the  wt.  of  the  whole  will  be 
5250  wt.  and  that  the  Carriage  hiring  horses  for  the  above 
goods  will  amount  to  1225  pounds.’76  Sometimes  Indian  bur- 

u  Compiled  from  journals  of  Indian  boards  and  assembly,  etc.  See  also 
South  Carolina  Gazette,  September  8,  1739;  September  12,  October  3,  1747. 

"Adair,  History  of  the  American  Indians,  p.  230.  Adair  explained  (ibid., 
p.  300)  that  bells  were  used  on  the  pack-horses  partly  on  account  of  the  ‘big 
flies  that  infest  the  country.’  JIC,  November  20,  1719,  notes  the  purchase  of 
two  horse  bells,  with  collars,  for  pack-horses  in  the  Catawba  trade,  at  £3. 

,8JC,  August  1,  1751.  See  also  James  Crokatt  (1752)  in  C.O.  5  :374,  K 
48 :  ‘its  customary  to  give  from  £3 :  to  £5  :  Sterling  for  a  Horse  Load.’ 


128 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


deners  were  employed  instead  of  horses.  This  seems  to  have 
been  the  earliest  method  of  conveyance,  and  the  tribes  of  the 
Savannah  River  region,  Yamasee,  Savannah,  Apalache,  etc., 
were  of  particular  service  in  this  capacity.77  Again,  after  the 
Indian  war,  Cherokee  burdeners  were  used  because  the  unset¬ 
tled  state  of  Indian  affairs  made  it  too  risky  to  send  horses. 
Each  burdener  shouldered  a  pack  of  about  thirty  skins.  The 
following  from  the  journal  of  the  Indian  board  in  1717  was  a 
characteristic  entry :  ‘Ordered,  that  the  Cherokee  Burdeners 
this  day  arrived,  be  paid  out  of  the  Store,  two  yards  of  blew 
duffields  to  each  man,  for  their  labour  and  travel  to  Charles 
Town  and  home  again.'78 

Some  part  of  the  heavy  expense  of  land  carriage  was  saved 
by  the  use  of  the  water-route  between  Charles  Town  and  the 
falls  of  the  Savannah.  Various  small  craft  were  employed: 
canoes  and  periagoes  paddled  by  Indians  or  negroes,  which 
were  also  part  of  the  regular  equipment  of  the  traders  with  the 
coast  tribes,  and  special  trading-boats.  About  1710  a  large 
periago  cost  sixteen  pounds  in  Carolina  currency,  a  small  canoe 
two  pounds.  A  periago  paddled  by  seven  or  eight  slaves  could 
load  500  to  700  skins.79  In  the  middle  eighteenth  century  the 
Charles  Town  merchants  and  the  up-country  storekeepers  made 
use  of  considerably  larger  boats.  Such  was  one  described  in  the 
South  Carolina  Gazette  of  February  1,  1748: 

Stolen,  or  gone  a-drift  from  Mr.  Elliott’s  Wharf,  last  Tuesday 
Night,  an  Indian-trading  Boat,  42  Feet  long  and  upwards  of  7 
feet  wide,  with  a  cabin  in  her  Stern,  and  Staples  in  her  Side,  and 
a  King  bolt  in  her  Head.  Whoever  takes  up  said  Boat,  and  delivers 
her  to  Macartan  &  Campbell  in  Charles  Town  shall  have  20  1. 
Currency  reward.80 

Trading-boats  such  as  this  drew  three  or  four  feet  of  water, 
and  were  equipped  with  oars,  but  not  usually  with  sails.81  Wil- 

77  Rivers,  Sketch,  p.  424.  C.O.  5:1264,  P  82:  a  report  of  governor  and 
council  in  1708  said  ‘Indians  seated  upwards  of  Seven  Hundred  Miles  off 
are  Supplied  with  Goods  by  our  White  Men  that  Transport  them  from  this 
River  [i.e.  the  Savannah]  upon  Indians’  backs.’ 

78JIC,  November  27,  1717.  See  ibid.,  1716-1718,  passim. 

‘9  Ibid. ;  John  Norris,  Profitable  Advice,  1712,  pp.  88,  93. 

80  See  South  Carolina  Gazette.  January  12,  1738,  for  an  advertisement  of 
the  sale  of  ‘an  Indian  trading  Boat,  with  her  Oars  and  Grapling’  by  Archi¬ 
bald  McGillivray  and  Jacob  Motte. 

81 JBT,  June  9,  1737  (C.O.  391:46,  ff.  125-126). 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  129 


liam  Stephens  in  his  journal  often  mentioned  the  trading-boats 
of  Eveleigh  and  others  which  plied  past  Savannah.  Five,  he 
said,  were  owned  by  the  storekeepers  at  Augusta;  they  could 
carry  ‘about  nine  or  ten  thousand  weight  of  Deer-Skins  each, 
making  four  or  five  Voyages  at  least  in  a  Year  to  Charles 
Town,  .  .  .  and  the  value  of  each  cargo  is  computed  to  be 
from  12  to  1500  £  Sterling.’82 

From  Charles  Town  to  the  up-country  the  traders  followed 
the  water-route  or  well-beaten  roads.  The  great  inland  trading 
paths  really  began  at  the  fall-line  of  the  rivers.  Congaree,  at 
the  head  of  the  Santee  swamp,  distant  one  hundred  and  forty- 
five  miles  by  road  from  Charles  Town,  was  a  focus  for  paths  to 
the  Catawba  and  the  Cherokee.  Thence,  the  Catawba  path  ran 
northwestward  to  the  Wateree  town  on  Wateree  River,  and 
along  that  stream  to  the  Waxhaws  and  the  Catawba,  where  it 
met  the  famous  Occaneechi  path  from  Virginia.83 

The  Congaree  route  to  the  Cherokee  country  became  im¬ 
portant  after  the  Indian  war,  when  the  more  southern  trail  was 
exposed  to  Creek  and  Yamasee  attack,  and  especially  after  the 
building  of  Fort  Congaree  in  1718.  Its  course  was  clearly 
indicated  on  George  Hunter’s  map  of  1730, 84  and  in  the  jour¬ 
nals  of  George  Chicken85  and  Sir  Alexander  Cuming.  To  the 
nearest  Cherokee  town  was  a  distance  of  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  miles.  The  path  followed  the  southern  margin  of  the 
Congaree  watershed,  through  Saluda  Old  Town  and  Ninety- 
Six,  so-called  because  ninety-six  miles  from  Keowee,  and  then 
crossed  over  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Savannah  River.  From 
Dividing  Paths  near  Apple  Tree  Creek  one  path  ran  westward 
to  the  heart  of  the  Lower  Towns  on  the  Tugaloo  River,  the 
other  to  Keowee.  At  Tugaloo,  ‘the  most  Antient  Town  in  these 
parts,’86  the  English  maintained  one  of  their  principal  facto- 

62  Ga.  Hist.  Coll.,  II.  72.  See  above  note  64. 

83  C.O.  5  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7  (manuscript  map,  official,  circa  1721- 
1727).  For  a  description  of  the  Virginia  trail  to  the  Catawba,  see  Bassett’s 
introduction  to  Byrd,  Writings,  p.  xviii. 

84  Library  of  Congress. 

85  Mereness  ( ed. ) ,  Travels,  pp.  97-172.  See  also  Year  Book  of  the  City  of 
Charleston,  1894,  pp.  342-52.  I  have  also  used  maps  in  the  Colonial  Office 
Library,  Whitehall :  especially  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7,  and  the  Haig- 
Hunter  map  of  the  Cherokee,  1751,  ibid.,  Carolina,  17. 

88  Chicken,  in  Mereness  (ed.),  Travels,  p.  145.  Tugaloo  and  the  towns 
nearby  were  in  Oconee  County,  S.  C.,  and  Habersham  County,  Ga. 


130 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


ries.  Estatoee  nearby,  with  more  than  six  hundred  people,  was 
the  ‘mother  town’  of  this  lower  division;  Itseyi,  Noyowee  (Nu- 
yuhi),  Chagee,  and  Toxaway  were  neighboring  settlements. 
Westward  from  Tugaloo,  at  the  head  of  the  Chattahoochee, 
fifteen  to  thirty  miles  distant,  were  the  frontier  towns  towards 
the  Creeks:  Soquee  or  Sukeki,  Naguchee,  and  Echota.  From 
Echota  a  difficult  mountain  path  led  by  way  of  Unacoi  Gap 
over  the  lofty  Blue  Ridge,  then  through  the  Valley  Towns  to 
the  head  of  the  Hiwasee,  a  branch  of  the  Tennessee,  and  ulti¬ 
mately  across  the  high  Unakas,  by  the  Northwest  Passage  of 
the  traders,  to  the  Overhill  Cherokee. 

But  from  Congaree  the  usual  approach  to  the  Cherokee 
country  was  by  way  of  famous  Keowee,  where,  in  1753,  Fort 
Prince  George  was  built.87  A  mile  above  Keowee,  Cunasagee 
(Sugar  Town)  marked  the  head  of  the  lovely  Vale  of  Keo¬ 
wee.  The  botanist  Bartram,  who  saw  it  in  1776,  wrote  that 
‘this  fertile  vale  within  the  remembrance  of  some  old  traders 
with  whom  I  conversed,  was  one  continued  settlement;  the 
swelling  sides  of  the  adjoining  hills  were  then  covered  with 
habitations,  and  the  rich  level  grounds  beneath  lying  on  the 
river,  was  cultivated  and  planted.’88  Around  1715  the  Lower 
Cherokee  on  or  near  the  headwaters  of  the  Savannah  River 
numbered  eleven  towns  and  2,100  people.  Westward  from 
Keowee  the  trading  path  ran  by  way  of  Old  Keowee,  Tomasee 
and  Oconoee,  to  Chatooga,  Tacoreche,  and  Stecoe,  where  again 
the  Blue  Ridge  raises  its  barrier  three  to  four  thousand  feet 
high.  But  the  Chattooga  River  and  its  tributary  creeks  have 
etched  their  valleys  deeply  into  the  hills,  and  by  way  of  Rabun 
Gap  was  an  easy  approach  for  Indian  or  trader  to  the  sources 
of  the  Little  Tennessee,  another  of  the  western  waters.  Beyond 
the  pass  this  river  pursues  its  first  rapid  course  northward, 
through  the  ‘extensive  and  fruitful  vale  of  Cowe’ ;  it  is  soon  ‘in¬ 
credibly  increased  in  size,  by  the  continual  accession  of  brooks 
flowing  in  from  the  hills  on  each  side.’  These  hills,  Bartram 
observed,  had  been  ‘the  common  situations  of  the  towns  of  the 

87  Oconee  County,  S.  C.  See  D.  D.  Wallace,  Henry  Laurens,  p.  98  and 
appendix  IV  (pp.  503-10). 

88  Bartram,  Travels,  1792,  p.  330. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  131 


ancients.’89  Here,  in  the  early  eighteenth  century,  Old  Estatoee, 
Tessento,  Noofka,  and  Arachi  still  looked  down  from  their 
heights  upon  this  fountain  of  the  Mississippi.  Northward  the 
widening  valley  of  the  river  and  the  nearby  hills  were  the  sites 
of  numerous  settlements:  Echoy,  Nequasse  or  Nucasse,  Wa¬ 
tauga  and  Cowee,  and  the  hill-towns  of  Catatoga,  Cunisca, 
Ellijay  the  little,  and  Jore.  From  Watauga,  where  the  Little 
Tennessee  curves  westward,  a  path  led  off  to  the  northeast, 
through  Watauga  Gap  in  the  Cowee  range,  to  a  second  group 
of  the  Middle  Towns  on  the  parallel  course  of  the  Tuckasegee. 
In  all  these  middle  settlements  the  English  noted  some  thirty 
towns,  with  a  population  of  nearly  six  thousand  Indians.  Po¬ 
litically  the  Middle  Towns  were  joined  to  the  Lower  Cherokee. 
From  Jore  the  traders’  route  to  the  Overhill  settlements  struck 
westward  to  Little  Tellico,  and  thence  by  way  of  Great  Tellico, 
‘an  English  Factory,’  to  the  Tennessee.  The  other  chief  towns 
of  the  trans-montane  division,  the  bulwark  of  the  Cherokee, 
and  of  Carolina,  against  the  French  Indians  of  the  Northwest, 
were  Euphase,  Tallasee,  Tennessee,  Chotte,  and  Settico.  In  the 
Overhill  towns  was  spoken  a  peculiar  dialect,  the  Atali. 

In  1721  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  re¬ 
ceived  a  ‘true  and  exact  account  of  the  number  and  names  of 
all  the  Towns  belonging  to  the  Cherikee  Nation  and  of  the 
Number  of  Men,  Women,  and  Children  inhabiting  the  same,’90 
which  was  apparently  based  on  carefully  compiled  returns  from 
traders  and  agents.  Fifty-three  towns  of  a  total  of  sixty  were 
named,  with  a  population  of  10,379,  of  whom  3,510  were  men. 
This  was  probably  slightly  under  the  actual  number.91 

89  Ibid.,  p.  343,  Macon  County,  N.  C.  Nucasse  was  near  Franklin,  N.  C. ; 
the  path  from  Keowee  traversed  Rabun  County,  Georgia.  The  Tuckaseegee 
River  towns  were  in  Jackson  County,  N.  C.  The  Overhill  towns  were  mostly 
in  Monroe  County,  Tenn.  Tellico  Plains  is  the  approximate  site  of  Great 
Tellico. 

90  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  part  2,  173. 

91  Governor  Johnson  in  1708  said  the  Cherokees  were  settled  in  sixty 
towns  and  had  at  least  500  men  (C.O.  5:1264,  P  82).  ‘An  Exact  Account 
of  the  number  and  Strength  of  all  the  Indian  Nations  that  were  subject  to 
the  Government  of  South  Carolina,  and  Solely  Traded  with  them  in  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1715,’  drawn  from  the  journals  of  Nairne,  John 
Wright,  Price  Hughes,  and  John  Barnwell  (C.O.  5:1265,  Q  201),  gave  a 
total  for  the  Cherokees  of  11,530  (it  should  be  11,210),  as  follows:  Upper 
Settlement,  19  towns,  900  men,  980  women,  400  boys,  480  girls  j  Middle 
Settlement,  30  towns,  2500  men,  2000  women,  950  boys,  900  girls ;  Lower 


132 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


But  relations  with  the  Indians  of  the  Creek  confederation 
were  much  more  important  commercially  than  with  either  Ca¬ 
tawba  or  Cherokee.  The  chief  inland  bases  of  the  trade,  there¬ 
fore,  were  found  at  the  fall-line  of  the  Savannah  River.  In 
the  late  seventeenth  century,  Savannah  Town,  with  its  Indian 
villages  and  its  traders’  stockades  on  both  banks  of  the  river,92 
foreshadowed  the  later  settlements  of  New  Windsor93  and 
Augusta.  New  Windsor  township  was  laid  out  in  the  shelter 
of  Fort  Moore.  Augusta,  which  was  built  in  1735  seven  miles 
upstream  on  the  Georgia  side,  partially  supplanted  the  Caro¬ 
lina  village  as  the  outfitting  station  for  the  trade.  William 
Stephens  estimated  in  1740,  perhaps  too  boastfully,  that  six 
hundred  traders  and  two  thousand  horses  resorted  to  Augusta 
in  the  spring.94  From  Charles  Town  to  Savannah  Town  was  a 
distance  by  road,  via  Edisto  Bluff,  of  one  hundred  and  forty 
miles.  But  the  longer  water-route  was  preferred,  except  when 
hostile  Indians  lurked  along  the  river.  From  Port  Royal  to 
Savannah  Town  was  reckoned  twenty  days’  rowing  against 
the  current,  but  the  laden  periagoes  and  trading-boats  dropped 
down-stream  in  four  or  five  days.  Five  days  up  from  Port 
Royal,  on  the  right  bank,  was  Palachacola  Old  Town,95 
abandoned  by  the  Indians  in  1715,  where  provisions  were  laid 
in  for  the  river  journey.  Opposite  the  town  a  garrison  was 
maintained  from  1723  to  1735. 

Long  before  the  founding  of  Georgia,  the  Carolina  traders 
followed  a  path  to  the  Cherokee  from  Old  Fort,  opposite  Sa¬ 
vannah  Town,  along  the  right  bank  of  the  Savannah  River.96 
Later,  this  became  the  main  highway  between  Georgia  and  the 
mountain  towns.  But  the  usual  Carolina  route  from  Savannah 
Town  ran  northeast  of  the  river.  Both  trails  entered  the  Chero- 

Settlement,  11  towns,  600  men,  620  women,  400  boys,  480  girls.  The  manu¬ 
script  map,  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7,  was  probably  based  on  the  same 
data,  and  the  figures  are  substantially  the  same. 

“  Gascoyne,  Plat,  B.M.  Add.  MSS  5414,  roll  24.  See  instructions  to 
Ludwell,  Nov.  8,  1691,  to  encourage  settlement  at  Savannah  Town  (C.O. 
5:288,  p.  195). 

03  See  Adair,  History  of  the  American  Indians,  p.  340;  and  Haig-Hunter 
map,  1751,  C.O.  Maps,  Carolina,  17. 

M  A  State  of  the  Province  of  Georgia,  pp.  6  f.,  reprinted  in  Ga.  Hist.  Soc. 
Coll.,  II.  72.  Cf.  Martyn,  An  Account  shelving  the  Progress  of  Georgia,  p. 
22,  reprinted  in  ibid.,  p.  294;  and  An  Impartial  Enquiry,  pp.  48  f. 

85  C.O.  5  :358,  A  9. 

96  See  reference,  note  92. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  133 


kee  country  at  Tugaloo,  where  also  ended  the  Indian  path, 
sometimes  used  by  traders,  from  Coweta  Town  on  the  Chatta¬ 
hoochee. 

From  Savannah  Town  and  the  neighboring  settlements  the 
great  southern  and  western  trade  routes  led  away  to  the  popu¬ 
lous  Creek  towns  in  the  Altamaha,  Chattahoochee,  and  Ala¬ 
bama  valleys,  and  beyond  to  the  settlements  of  the  Choctaw 
and  the  Chickasaw,  and  as  far  as  the  Natchez  and  Yazoo  vil¬ 
lages  on  the  Mississippi.97  After  1690  and  prior  to  the  Yama- 
see  War  the  first  objective  of  the  southern  traders  was  Ochese 
Creek,  the  head  of  Ocmulgee  River  above  the  confluence  with 
Tobesofkee  Creek.  There  the  Ochese  Creek  Indians,  by  ab¬ 
breviation  the  Creeks,  were  seated  in  ten  or  eleven  towns.  An 
official  report  in  1715  placed  their  numbers  at  731  men,  in  all, 
2,406  souls.98  In  1708  Governor  Johnson  had  described  them 
as  great  hunters  and  warriors,  who  consumed  large  quantities 
of  English  goods,  in  contrast  to  the  lazy  Cherokee.99  For  fifty 
miles  from  Savannah  Town  a  Creek  trader  guided  his  caravan 
a  little  south  of  west  to  the  ford  of  the  Ogeechee  River.  Be¬ 
yond,  the  road  divided  into  two  paths.  If  he  traded  with  the 
Okmulgee  and  the  neighboring  towns  he  turned  his  horses 
southwest  to  follow  the  Lower  Path  by  way  of  Oconee  Town. 
Approaching  the  Ocmulgee  River  he  passed  through  ‘the 
famous  Oakmulgee  fields,’  where,  wrote  William  Bartram 
after  many  years,  ‘are  yet  conspicuous  very  wonderful  remains 
of  the  power  and  grandeur  of  the  ancients  in  this  part  of 
America.’100  ‘Good  Land’  was  the  brief  rubric  on  an  early  map 
at  this  place;101  the  southern  tribes,  after  their  primitive  fash¬ 
ion,  were  notable  farmers.  It  was  by  the  Lower  Path  to  Okmul¬ 
gee  that  Moore  and  the  other  early  invaders  marched  to  the 
(frontiers  of  Apalache.  After  the  Yamasee  War  and  the  retreat 
westward  of  the  Lower  Creeks,  it  became,  with  its  extension 

01  The  description  below  is  based  on  many  cartographical  sources,  in¬ 
cluding  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7 ;  Spotswood’s  copy  of  Price  Hughes’ 
map,  ibid.,  Virginia,  2 ;  William  Bonar,  ‘A  Draught  of  the  Creek  Nation,’ 
May,  1757,  ibid.,  Carolina,  21 ;  ibid.,  Carolina,  3 ;  ibid.,  Florida,  2. 

08  Rivers,  Sketch,  p.  94.  The  Nairne  inset  in  the  Crisp  map  (1711)  showed 
‘Okesee,’  700  men.  The  towns  were  near  Macon,  Ga. 

09  C.O.  5:1264,  P  82. 

100  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  53,  379. 

101  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7. 


134 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


the  ‘Old  Sandhill  Path,’  the  direct  road  to  their  new  towns  on 
the  Chattahoochee. 

The  Lower  Creek  country,  after  1716,  extended  from  a 
short  distance  above  the  falls  of  the  Chattahoochee  some  forty 
or  fifty  miles  downstream.  Coweta  Town  was  located  on  the 
right  bank,  a  few  miles  from  the  falls;  Kasihta  opposite,  sev¬ 
eral  miles  below.  These  were  the  northernmost  towns  of  any 
importance,  though  about  fifty  miles  above,  where  the  Upper 
Path  crossed  the  river,  was  Chattahoochee  town,  settled  some 
years  before  for  convenience  in  carrying  on  the  trade  to  the 
Upper  Creeks.  Below  Coweta  most  of  the  villages  were  planted 
on  the  western  bank.  They  included  the  Yuchi  town;  Osochi, 
Chiaha,  and  Okmulgee,  the  so-called  Point  towns,  and  Hichiti, 
in  the  sharp  eastward  bend  of  the  river,  opposite  the  mouth  of 
Hichitee  Creek;  Apalachicola,  Oconee,  and  Sawokli.  Kolomi, 
Atasi,  and  Tuskegee  were  at  first  neighbors  of  Coweta,  but 
later  moved  down  below  the  Point.  Eufala  town  was  some 
distance  below,  near  Clewalla  Creek;  Chisca  Talofa  was  an 
outlying  southern  settlement  towards  Weopka,  or  the  Forks 
village,  which  was  located  in  the  middle-century  on  the  west 
bank,  opposite  the  confluence  with  the  Flint.  In  the  forks 
proper,  Cherokeeleechee  in  1716  built  his  fort,  where,  for  a 
time,  the  pro-Spanish  faction  of  the  Apalachicola  maintained 
a  center  of  anti-English  intrigue.102 

By  the  Upper  Path  the  traders  before  the  Yamasee  War 
made  their  way  westward  from  Ogeechee  one  hundred  and 
ten  miles  to  Coweta  and  Kasihta  Old  Towns  near  the  head  of 
the  Ocmulgee.  After  the  rising  and  the  Lower  Creek  migration, 
the  Upper  Path  still  remained  the  direct  route  to  the  Upper 
Creek  towns.  Arrived  at  Okfuskee  on  the  Tallapoosa,  after  a 
toilsome  journey  from  the  settlements  of  at  least  three  weeks, 
a  trader  found  himself  on  the  margin  of  the  Upper  Creek 
country.  But  if  his  license  read  for  the  Chickasaw  or  the  Choc¬ 
taw,  he  was  still  only  a  little  more  than  half-way  to  his  desti¬ 
nation. 

The  Upper  Creeks  were  known  to  the  Carolinians  for  many 
years  by  the  names  of  their  three  geographical  divisions :  Tala- 

102  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7 ;  Carolina,  21 ;  Swanton,  Early  History, 
plates  1,  2,  and  index  under  towns.  Coweta  and  Kasihta  were  near  present 
Columbus,  Ga.,  and  most  of  the  other  towns  were  in  Russell  County,  Ala. 


THE  CHARLES  TOWN  INDIAN  TRADE  135 


poosa,  Coosa  or  Abikha,  and  Alabama.  By  one  account  of 
about  1715,  ‘the  Tallibooses  consist  of  11  Towns  and  563 
men;’103  a  nearly  contemporaneous  estimate  was  13  towns,  636 
men,  2,343  souls.104  After  the  Ochese  this  was  the  largest 
Indian  ‘nation’  in  the  Carolina  trading  system.  The  Talapoosa 
villages  were  strung  along  the  valley  of  the  Okfuskee  or  Talla¬ 
poosa  River  from  their  chief  village,  and  the  foremost  western 
Carolina  factory,  at  Great  Okfuskee,  well  down  to  the  forks 
of  the  Alabama.  From  Okfuskee  to  Tukabahchee  the  river  flows 
almost  due  south,  and  then  turns  sharply  westward  to  its  con¬ 
fluence  with  the  Coosa.  Tukabahchee  was  another  early  Caro¬ 
lina  factory,  where  the  Lower  Path  from  Coweta  reached  the 
river,  to  follow  it  thence  to  the  towns  in  the  point  overlooked 
by  Fort  Toulouse.  Near  the  French  fort  and  along  the  Ala¬ 
bama  River  below  lived  the  Alabama  Indians,  ‘4  Towns  and 
226  Men,’  the  English  reckoned,  in  1715. 105  From  Charles  ' 
Town  to  the  Alabamas,  said  Oglethorpe,  was  a  journey  of 
twenty-seven  days  for  the  packhorse  trains.100  The  Upper  Path 
continued  northwestward  from  Okfuskee  twenty  miles  to  Wa- 
kokai,  then  west  an  equal  distance  to  Abihkutci  and  nearby 
Coosa,  on  the  Coosa  River,  the  head  towns  of  the  third  great 
division  of  the  Upper  Creeks.  In  1715  they  were  said  to  num¬ 
ber  ‘14  Towns  and  1773  Souls  whereof  500  [are]  fighting 
Men.’107 

The  ‘old  Chikkasah,  or  American-Flanders  path,’  as  Adair 
named  it,108  was  a  continuation  of  the  Upper  Path  extending 
northwestward  for  about  two  hundred  miles  beyond  the  Abihka 
country.  It  ran  through  ‘Rich  Oak  and  Hickery  Land  mixt 
with  Pleasant  Savanas’109  near  the  head  of  the  Tuscaloosa;  it 
skirted  the  southern  foothills  of  the  Appalachians  where  they 

103  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7.  In  the  present  Tallapoosa  and  Elmore 
Counties,  Ala. 

104  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  201.  D’Artaguiette  in  1721  listed  twelve  towns  of 
‘Talapouches,’  with  715  men,  and  eight  of  ‘Alibamons,’  with  560  men,  but  his 
classification  was  not  exactly  the  same  as  the  English,  and  made  no  separate 
list  of  the  Coosa  towns.  See  Baron  Marc  de  Villiers,  in  Journ.  de  la  societe 
des  Americanistes  de  Paris,  n.s.,  XIV.  127-40. 

105  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7.  Near  Montgomery,  Ala. 

103  Oglethorpe  to  [Newcastle?]  circa  July,  1736,  in  C.O.  5  :383. 

107  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7. 

108  Adair,  History  of  the  American  Indians,  p.  239. 

109  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7. 


136 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


merge  into  the  Alabama  plains.  On  the  upper  branches  of  the 
Tombigbee  was  the  small  but  warlike  tribe  of  Chickasaw,  six 
villages,  700  men,  by  English  account  in  1715,  but  in  the  next 
few  decades  they  were  wasted  by  their  wars  with  the  French 
and  the  Choctaw.110  Always  they  were  greatly  inferior  in  num  ¬ 
bers  to  the  Choctaw,  whose  country  lay  southwest  of  their 
towns,  about  the  sources  of  the  Pascagoula  and  Pearl  Rivers. 
With  some  15,000  inhabitants  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
Choctaw  was  the  largest  compact  ‘nation’  in  the  South,  only 
outnumbered,  perhaps,  by  the  loosely  federated  Creeks.  On 
those  occasions  when  the  path  was  open  to  them,  the  Caro¬ 
linians  could  reach  the  Choctaw  either  from  the  Chickasaw 
villages,  or  by  the  extension  of  the  Lower  Path  from  the 
Alabama.111 

From  the  Ogeechee,  then,  to  the  borders  of  Florida  and 
Louisiana,  ran  those  two  main  arteries  of  the  southwestern 
trade,  gradually  diverging,  the  Upper  and  the  Lower  Paths  of 
the  Charles  Town  traders.  Long  before  the  railroad,  long  be¬ 
fore  the  emigrant  trails,  they  led  Anglo-American  pioneers  to 
their  first  conquest,  by  trade,  of  a  great  section  of  the  trans- 
Appalachian  West.  With  the  paths  of  the  Carolina  piedmont 
and  the  trails  to  the  Cherokee  they  linked  the  Carolina  border 
with  the  most  numerous  tribes  of  Indians  east  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi.  No  such  network  penetrated  the  wilderness  from  any 
other  English  colony  in  the  seventeenth  or  early  eighteenth  cen¬ 
tury.  No  such  direct  commercial  and  political  hegemony  was 
won  by  the  English  traders  elsewhere,  over  so  great  an  area, 
even  by  the  Albanians.  Thomas  Naime  might  boast  in  1705 — 
and  Governor  Glen  echo  his  words  in  1748 — ‘Everybody  knows 
well  wee  have  the  greatest  quantity  of  Indians  Subject  to  this 
Government  of  any  in  all  America,  and  almost  as  many  as  all 
other  English  Governments  put  together.’112 

u<>C.O.  5:1265,  Q  201.  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  437,  448-50. 

111  See  the  De  Crenay  map,  1733,  ibid.,  plate  5. 

115  S.P.G.  MSS,  A,  II,  no.  156.  Cf.  Glen  to  Board  of  Trade,  April  14, 
1748,  in  C.O.  5  :372,  I  14. 


CHAPTER  VI 


Trade  Regulation  and  Intercolonial  Problems 

1670-1715 

Until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  regulation 
and  management  of  Indian  affairs  in  the  British  American 
empire  were  left  almost  wholly  to  the  control  of  the  separate 
colonies,  with  results  which  approached  chaos.  The  gradual 
centralization  and  imperialization  of  Indian  relations  during 
and  after  the  last  French  war  was  a  major  tendency  of  later 
British  policy,  and  a  factor  in  the  complex  causes  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Revolution.1  Probably  in  no  other  colony  was  Indian  ad¬ 
ministration  so  often  the  subject  of  provincial  legislation,  or  so 
much  involved  in  provincial  politics,  as  in  South  Carolina. 
Nowhere  were  the  evil  possibilities  of  intercolonial  conflicts 
for  the  control  of  the  Indian  trade  more  clearly  demonstrated 
than  on  the  southern  frontier.  Southern  experience,  moreover, 
as  embodied  in  the  Carolina  Indian  code,  contributed  sub¬ 
stantially  to  later  imperial  attempts  to  deal  with  the  Indian 
aspect  of  the  western  problem.2 

For  the  first  two  decades,  while  the  Proprietors  were  mo¬ 
nopolizing  traffic  with  the  inland  tribes,  they  attempted  to  exer¬ 
cise  from  England  a  rigid  supervision  over  Indian  relations. 
From  the  beginning  they  insisted  upon  orderly  purchase  of 
Indian  lands,  and  warned  against  encroachments  by  settlers.3 
The  Carolina  record  in  these  matters  was  fairly  good,  judged 
by  frontier  standards.  Between  1670  and  1686  the  land  from 
Charles  Town  to  the  Savannah  River  and  westward  to  the 
mountains  was  acquired  by  formal  treaty  with  the  ‘cassiques’ 
of  Stono,  Edisto,  Ashepoo,  St.  Helena,  Combahee,  Kusso,  etc.4 

1  See  C.  W.  Alvord,  Mississippi  Valley  in  British  Politics. 

2  The  suggestions  of  the  southern  superintendent,  John  Stuart,  based  upon 
southern  practice,  were  more  influential  in  the  framing  of  the  Board  of 
Trade  plan  of  1764  than  has  yet  been  pointed  out. 

3  See  instructions  to  governor  and  council,  July  27,  1669  (C.O.  5:286, 
pp.  43-6;  Rivers,  Sketch,  p.  348)  ;  ‘Agrarian  Laws,’  1672  (ibid.,  p.  358,  from 
C.O.  5  :286,  pp.  83-6)  ;  Proprietors  to  governor  and  council,  April  10,  1677 
(C.O.  5:286,  p.  125)  ;  same  to  same,  May  19,  1679  (ibid.,  p.  141)  ;  instruc¬ 
tions  to  governor,  June  5,  1682  (ibid.,  p.  195). 

4  C.O.  5:288,  p.  100.  Report  of  the  Committee,  Appointed  to  examine  into 
the  Proceedings  of  the  People  of  Georgia  (1737),  Appendix,  pp.  50-3. 
CSCHS,  V.  456  f.  note. 


[137] 


138 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


But  perhaps  it  was  not  so  much  proprietary  influence  as  the 
slow  growth  of  the  colony  and  the  weakness  of  the  Cusabo  or 
settlement  Indians,  that  saved  South  Carolina  from  the  kind  of 
Indian  crisis  through  which  Virginia  and  New  England  were 
passing  in  those  years.  The  Westo  War  of  1680  and  the  Yama- 
see  War  of  1715  were  clearly  of  a  different  order. 

Justice  to  the  Indians,  peaceful  intercourse,  and  in  particular 
the  suppression  of  the  traffic  in  Indian  slaves,  these  were  in¬ 
junctions  to  successive  governors  and  councils.  Under  the 
Fundamental  Constitutions  the  Grand  Council  had  been  au¬ 
thorized  ‘to  make  peace  or  war,  leagues,  treaties,  &c.  with  any 
of  the  neighboring  Indians,’5  but  early  instructions  limited  its 
powers  to  defense  against  invasion  or  injury,  and  enjoyned  ‘a 
fair  Correspondence  with  all  the  people  round  about  who  doe 
you  no  harm.’6  To  insure  peace,  in  1680  the  Proprietors  set  up 
a  separate  judicature  to  deal  with  disputes  ‘between  Christians 
and  Indians.’7  The  governor  and  six  other  commissioners — 
‘the  soberest  and  most  disinteressed  Inhabitants,’  they  were  de¬ 
scribed  by  the  Proprietors’  secretary8 — were  to  meet  every  two 
months,  or  on  summons,  to  hear  and  determine  all  conflicts. 
They  had  competence  over  trade  disputes,  but  were  in  fact 
strictly  forbidden  to  meddle  with  the  proprietary  monopoly  of 
the  inland  trade.  The  strongest  instruction  to  the  commission 
was  to  prevent  the  enslaving  or  transportation  without  special 
proprietary  license  of  any  friendly  Indians  within  two  hundred 
miles  of  Charles  Town.  This  early  machinery  for  Indian  regu¬ 
lation  failed  completely  to  serve  the  Proprietors’  purposes. 
Governor  West  and  at  least  two  other  members,  Maurice 
Mathews  and  John  Boone,  were  slave-dealers,  whose  profits 
from  that  business  were  dependent  upon  Indian  wars.  In  1682, 
following  the  Westo  War,  the  commission  was  abrogated.  The 
Proprietors  then  complained  that  it  had  been  secured  from 
them  ‘rather  .  .  .  for  the  opression  than  protection  of  the  In¬ 
dians.’  At  that  time  they  extended  their  protection  to  all 

'William  MacDonald  (ed.),  Select  Charters,  p.  158  (Article  50). 

6  Instructions  of  May  1,  1671,  C.O.  5:286,  p.  64,  printed  in  Rivers, 
Sketch,  Appendix,  p.  368. 

7  C.O.  5 :286,  pp.  148-52. 

8  [Samuel  Wilson],  An  Account  of  the  Province  of  Carolina,  1682,  p.  15, 
reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed.),  Collections,  II.  31. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


139 


Indians  within  four  hundred  miles  of  Charles  Town  and  un¬ 
qualifiedly  forbade  their  enslavement.9 

The  conflict  between  the  Proprietors  and  the  planters  over 
Indian  slavery  was  embittered  by  a  clash  of  trading  interests. 
With  their  stake  in  the  inland  peltry  trade,  the  Proprietors  op¬ 
posed  wars  and  the  slave-traffic  for  selfish  as  well  as  humani¬ 
tarian  reasons.  The  colonists,  indeed,  gave  them  little  credit  for 
benevolence,  and  this  cynicism  found  some  support  in  the  fact 
that  proprietary  opposition  to  Indian  slavery  waxed  and  waned 
with  the  rise  and  decline  of  their  trading  regime.  Moreover, 
they  never  developed  similar  scruples  with  regard  to  the  Guinea 
trade.  In  1671-1672  the  ‘Temporary  Laws’  and  the  ‘Agrarian 
Laws’  forbade  Indian  slavery  or  the  transportation  of  any 
Indian  ‘without  his  owne  consent.’  The  ‘consent’  of  captives 
brought  in  by  the  Sewee  was  actually  recorded  in  the  Grand 
Council  journal  in  1675. 10  The  Westo  War  undermined  the 
proprietary  Indian  traffic  and  inaugurated  an  orgy  of  slave¬ 
dealing  which  drew  down  the  wrath  of  the  proprietary  board. 
In  September,  1683,  the  Proprietors  sent  to  the  governor  and 
council  a  long  letter  exposing  and  denouncing  the  odious  busi¬ 
ness.11  The  colonists’  excuse  that  public  safety  demanded  the 
transportation  of  captives  they  swept  aside,  and  ridiculed  the 
argument  that  ‘the  Sevanas  haveing  United  all  their  tribes  are 
become  [so]  powerfull  that  it  is  Dangerous  to  disoblige  them.’ 
The  exclusive  contract  with  the  Savannah  for  slaves  in  return 
for  arms  and  ammunition  was  a  certain  means,  they  declared, 
to  attract  to  them  all  the  other  scattered  tribes  ‘and  so  make 
them  formidable  indeed.’  The  plea  that  the  Savannahs  assisted 
the  colonists  against  their  enemies  met  with  the  reply  that  ‘the 
sending  away  of  Indians  made  the  Westoh  and  Waniah  Warrs 
and  Continue [s]  them,’  and  will  ‘make  other  Warrs  if  the  In¬ 
dians  are  Suffered  still  to  be  sent  away  and  warr  is  very  Incon¬ 
venient  for  Planters.’  Humanity,  the  planters  had  explained, 
induced  them  to  buy  slaves  of  their  Indian  allies  ‘to  keep  them 
from  being  put  to  Cruell  deaths.’  But  thus,  retorted  the  Pro¬ 
prietors,  you  induce  the  Savannahs  ‘through  Covetousness  of 

9  Instructions  to  Morton,  May  10,  1682,  C.O.  5  :286,  p.  186. 

10  Rivers,  Sketch,  p.  132 ;  Appendix,  pp.  353,  358.  JGC,  December  10,  1675. 

11  C.O.  5  :288,  p.  16  et  seq. 


140 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


your  gunns  Powder  and  Shott  and  other  European  Comodities 
...  to  ravish  the  wife  from  the  Husband,  Kill  the  father  to 
get  the  Child  and  to  burne  and  Destroy  the  habitations  of  these 
poore  people  into  whose  Country  wee  were  Ch[e]arefully  re¬ 
ceived  by  them,  cherished  and  supplyed  when  wee  are  weake, 
or  at  least  never  have  done  us  hurt;  and  after  wee  have  set 
them  on  worke  to  doe  all  these  horrid  wicked  things  to  get 
slaves  to  sell  the  dealers  in  Indians  call  it  humanity  to  buy  them 
and  thereby  keep  them  from  being  murdered.’  The  scandal  of 
these  actions  in  England,  they  declared,  had  prevented  ‘many 
sober,  substantiall  Men  from  coming  to  you.’  It  was  a  business, 
they  charged,  which  enriched  only  a  few  ambitious  men  with 
‘a  share  in  the  Government.’  Against  these  trader-politicians 
the  Proprietors  proceeded  with  rigor.  The  Indian  commission 
was  abolished,  West  removed  as  governor,  Maurice  Mathews 
and  James  Moore  discharged  as  deputies,  the  former  also  as 
surveyor.12  To  be  sure,  in  1683,  they  modified  the  complete 
prohibition,  conceding  that  slaves  might  be  taken  by  soldiers  in 
legitimate  Indian  wars  to  encourage  enlistments.  But  for  their 
exportation  they  required  the  consent  of  the  parliament,  signi¬ 
fied  in  each  case  by  special  act.13  With  the  decline  of  the  Pro¬ 
prietors’  interest  in  the  Indian  trade,  and  the  slackening  of  their 
efficiency  in  government  their  opposition  to  the  slave-trade  be¬ 
came  more  and  more  perfunctory.  In  any  case  the  traffic  sur¬ 
vived  as  an  important  instrument  in  Carolinian  expansion.  The 
dispute,  meanwhile,  had  helped  to  stir  up  anti-proprietary  feel¬ 
ings  which  never  disappeared  until  the  proprietorship  ceased. 
The  address  to  Seth  Sothell  in  1691 14  voiced  the  mingled 
grievances  of  a  growing  party  ‘concerninge  Fundamentall  Con¬ 
stitutions,  Indentures  for  land  and  in  matters  of  orderinge 
the  Indian  trade.’ 

The  proprietary  monopoly  of  1677-1684  lapsed,  but  indi¬ 
vidual  Proprietors  were  tempted  by  Shaftesbury’s  vision  of 
wealth  in  the  Carolinian  wilderness,  as  were  also  ambitious 
governors  and  councillors.  Landgrave  Colleton,  brother  of  the 
Proprietor,  was  accused  by  the  anti-proprietary  party  of  at- 

12  C.O.  5  :288,  pp.  16,  17,  18,  20,  50,  64,  67. 

13  C.O.  5  :288,  pp.  18  f. 

14  Rivers,  Sketch,  Appendix,  pp.  426  f. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


141 


tempting  to  secure  a  trade  monopoly,  and  it  was  insinuated  that 
there  were  ‘rational  grounds’  for  believing  that  he  had  a  partner 
in  England.  ‘Wee  have  never  wanted  courage  to  regulate,  by 
Lawes,  the  Indian  Trade,’  declared  these  memorialists,  ‘so  as 
that  the  Colony  should  not  be  in  any  danger  from  thence ;  yett 
wee  have  been  alwayes  interrupted  and  obstructed  by  such 
doings  as  these.’  Apparently  the  earliest  act  ‘for  Regulating  of 
the  Indian  Trade’15  was  passed  in  Sothell’s  time.  It  is  not  ex¬ 
tant,  and  was  soon  superseded  by  the  extraordinary  measure  of 
September  26,  169 1.16  The  preamble  recited  that  previous  in¬ 
vasions  of  the  colony  had  found  the  government  without  funds 
to  rout  the  enemy,  and  without  the  services  of  the  persons  em¬ 
ployed  in  the  Indian  trade,  ‘by  reason  of  the  distance  the  most 
convenient  place  for  that  tradeing  lyes  from  the  settled  part 
of  this  Collony.’  Duties  were  therefore  levied  upon  the  export 
of  skins  and  furs,  and  at  the  same  time  all  trading  was  for¬ 
bidden  south  of  the  Savannah  River,  north  of  the  Winyah 
River,  or  beyond  Savannah  Town  and  the  Congarees.  Pro¬ 
vision  was  made  for  the  withdrawal  of  traders  from  the  Lower 
Creeks  and  Cherokee  and  other  distant  tribes  within  a  specified 
period.  Probably  the  law  was  intended  to  create  another  mo¬ 
nopoly  to  be  enjoyed  by  Sothell  and  his  friends.  In  any  case 
the  governor  would  profit  largely  from  it:  for  two  years  he 
was  granted  a  third  of  the  duties  and  a  third  of  the  penalties 
for  illegal  trading.  Although  Sothell’s  acts  were  annulled  by 
the  Proprietors,  this  one  seems  to  have  been  enforced  against 
James  Moore  in  1692,  but  it  did  not  long  restrain  the  inland 
advance  of  the  traders.17 

With  Joseph  Blake  (deputy-governor,  1694,  1696-1700) 
began  the  great  westward  push  of  the  Carolina  traders  to  the 
Mississippi,  and  also  ten  years’  struggle  over  trade  regulation. 
Everyone  agreed  that  some  sort  of  reform  was  imperative,  in 
view  of  the  character  and  the  conduct  of  the  traders.  Both 
Blake  and  Moore,  magnates  of  the  trade,  repeatedly  called  for 

36  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  55. 

16  Ibid.,  p.  64. 

17  JGC,  April  14,  May  28,  1692.  In  1693  and  1696  acts  were  passed  ‘for 
destroying  beasts  of  prey  and  for  appointing  magistrates  for  the  hearing 
and  determining  of  all  causes  and  controversies  between  white  man  and 
Indian,  and  Indian  and  Indian.’  JCHA,  September  12,  14,  16,  18,  21,  1693; 
Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  108. 


142 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


legislation,  though  both  were  accused  by  their  enemies  of  ob¬ 
structing  reform  for  monopolistic  reasons.  Edward  Randolph, 
a  chronic  scandal-monger,  accused  Blake  of  a  partnership  with 
Amy,  a  Proprietor,  and  Thornburgh,  their  secretary.  ‘This 
triumvirate,’  he  said,  ‘carry  on  the  Government  and  the  Indian 
Trade  together,  for  one  must  support  the  other  else  both  are 
ruined.’18  Certainly  the  conflicting  interests  of  governors  and 
councillors  who  were  also  traders,  of  merchants,  planters,  and 
Proprietors,  long  prevented  agreement  upon  any  measure  of 
regulation.  In  December,  1697,  the  Proprietors  urged  Blake 
to  get  the  trade  regulated  so  ‘that  it  might  be  a  Strengthening 
to  the  Country.’19  Already,  in  February,  1697,  the  assembly  had 
debated  the  problem,  and  resolved  ‘that  the  said  Trade  be  Regu¬ 
lated’  but  had  postponed  the  issue  to  another  session.  A  great 
smallpox  epidemic  which  raged  among  the  Indians  for  four 
or  five  hundred  miles  inland  seemed  for  the  moment  to  make 
legislation  less  urgent.20  But  soon  rumors  of  the  French  project 
to  settle  on  the  Mississippi  supplied  a  new  motive  for  reform. 
In  September,  1698,  the  Commons  House  unanimously  re¬ 
solved  that  the  Indian  trade  as  then  conducted  was  ‘a  grievance 
to  the  Settlement  and  Prejudiciall  to  the  Safety  thereof.’21 

The  issues  of  this  early  American  debate  over  state  regula¬ 
tion  of  business  had  curiously  modern  implications.  In  the 
Commons  House  there  was  considerable  sentiment  for  a  public 
trade.  In  October,  1698,  the  committee  of  the  whole  agreed  that 
‘the  Indian  trade  should  be  managed  by  a  Publick  Stock  for 
the  Use  of  the  Publick’ ;  but  probably  in  deference  to  the 
merchants  the  public  commissioners  were  to  be  forbidden  to 
trade  directly  with  England.22  When  a  public  stock  was  again 
proposed  in  1703  this  restriction  was  waived.23  Meanwhile, 
under  Moore’s  government,  various  other  schemes  of  reor¬ 
ganization  had  been  brought  forward,  including  a  bill  in  1701 
for  an  open  trade  under  strict  public  regulation,  the  method 

18  Randolph  to  Blathwayt,  Bermuda,  April  8,  1699,  in  Prince  Society 
Publications,  XXXI  (Randolph  Papers,  VII),  554. 

19  C.O.  5  :289,  p.  38. 

™JCHA,  February  24,  March  2,  1696/7 ;  Blake  and  council  to  Proprie¬ 
tors,  April  23  [1698],  Commissions  and  Instructions,  1685-1715  (1916),  p. 
105. 

21 JCHA,  September  28,  1698. 

22  Ibid.,  October  4,  1698. 

23  Ibid.,  January  21,  1702/3. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


143 


ultimately  adopted.24  In  1702  the  assembly  rejected  both  a  pub¬ 
lic  trade  and  a  ‘farmed  trade’  such  as  Colonel  Thomas  Brough¬ 
ton,  a  member  of  the  assembly  and  a  considerable  trader,  had 
proposed.  For  a  monopoly  northward  to  the  Saxapahaw  and 
‘as  farr  Southward  and  westward  as  the  Same  may  be  done 
with  Safety,’  Broughton  offered  to  pay  £800  a  year  into  the 
treasury,  and  to  maintain  twenty  armed  and  mounted  rangers 
to  guard  the  frontier.25  A  few  months  later  the  former  Caro¬ 
linian,  Robert  Quary,  was  urging  the  colonial  authorities  to 
take  over  the  proprieties  and  appoint  royal  governors,  especially 
in  Carolina,  where  a  law  to  regulate  the  Indian  trade  in  the 
public  interest  might,  he  said,  be  made  to  defray  all  the  ex¬ 
penses  of  the  government.  Quary  elaborated  his  ideas  in  another 
memorial.  He  proposed  that  the  Crown  create  companies  to 
control  the  Indian  trade  in  America,  which  would  provide 
frontier  defense  in  return  for  monopoly  rights.26  Nicholson 
supported  the  plan  before  the  Board  of  Trade.  This  was  sub¬ 
stantially  the  scheme  which  Spotswood,  a  decade  later,  set  up 
in  Virginia. 

In  the  Colleton  county  representation,  June  26,  1703, 
Moore’s  enemies  charged  that  ‘by  his  Artifices’  he  had  been 
‘the  chief  (if  not  the  only)  occasion  of  obstructing’  regulation, 
‘designing  nothing  less  than  the  ingrossing  the  same  for  him¬ 
self  and  accomplices.’  And  his  successor,  Johnson,  alluded  to 
the  fact  as  of  common  knowledge  that  the  upper  house  under 
previous  governors  had  consistently  refused  proposals  of  regu¬ 
lation.27  But  the  assembly  records  throw  some  doubt  upon 

“Ibid.,  February  6,  1700/1.  See  ibid.,  January  29,  1701/2  for  similar 
proposal.  See  John  Ash,  Present  State  of  Affairs  in  Carolina  (1706?),  Num¬ 
ber  4  of  [collection  of  papers  relating  to  the  church  controversy],  p.  30: 
‘Finding  himself  too  poor,  even  with  the  Countenance  of  his  Office,  to  make 
any  considerable  Profit  of  the  Indian  Trade,  he  lays  a  Design  of  getting 
it  wholly  into  his  Power.  This  he  attempted  by  getting  a  Bill  brought  into 
the  Assembly  at  the  latter  end  of  the  Year  1700,  Intituled,  A  Bill  for  Regu¬ 
lating  the  Indian  Trade,  but  so  contriv’d  as  to  have  made  him  wholly  Master 
of  it.  But  Mr.  Robert  Stephens,  Mr.  Trott  (then  no  Courtier)  and  some 
others  so  plainly  shew’d  its  ill  Aim,  that  it  was  thrown  out  of  the  Assembly, 
as  it  was  again  in  the  beginning  of  the  Year  1701.’ 

25  Ibid.,  January  22,  27,  29,  1701/2. 

20  C.O.  323:3,  E  31,  32;  Memorials  read  by  Board  of  Trade,  March  31 
and  April  7,  1702.  Quary  also  urged  the  settlement  of  the  Port  Royal  border. 
In  the  Archdale  papers  (MSS,  Library  of  Congress)  is  an  undated  project 
for  an  Indian  company  to  consist  of  ‘the  joynt  stock  of  all  Inhabitants,  who 
puting  in  to  the  saide  stock  according  to  their  capacities,  shall  receive  their 
proportion  of  all  Devidents  made  of  proffets.’ 

27  Rivers,  Sketch,  pp.  455  f. 


144 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


these  accusations.  In  April,  1702,  Moore  made  an  unusual,  but 
apparently  an  ingenuous  appeal  for  trade  reform  to  prevent 
an  Indian  war.  ‘I  have  the  most  Numerous  Family  of  Relations 
and  children  in  the  Collony,’  he  declared,  adding  that  he  had 
laid  out  most  of  his  fortune  ‘in  Settling  Plantations  for  them, 
and  those  in  the  most  Inland  Parts  of  the  Collony.’  Therefore 
in  case  of  war  he  had  ‘Reason  to  Expect  to  be  the  first  and 
greatest  Sufferer.’  He  believed  it  was  better  for  himself  and  his 
family  ‘to  prefer  the  Saveing  of  what  we  have  already  to  the 
Prospect  of  gitting  more  by  that  Trade,’  which,  unless  regu¬ 
lated,  would  certainly  bring  on  disaster.  Accordingly  he  prom¬ 
ised  his  assent  to  any  regulatory  law  ‘even  to  the  Ceasing  to 
trade  with  the  Indjans  or  to  be  Concerned  any  way  Relateing 
to  it  Whilst  I  am  Governor,’  provided  that  the  assembly’s  bill 
aimed  ‘at  nothing  but  the  Publick  Safety.’  At  the  same  time 
the  governor  freely  denounced  the  abuses  of  the  traders.28  He 
often  warned  that  care  must  be  taken  to  prevent  the  Yamasee 
and  Creeks  from  deserting  to  the  Spanish  and  French.  And  it 
was  his  initiative  that  led  to  official  investigations  which  un¬ 
covered  many  acts  of  petty  tyranny  by  the  traders.29  In  Janu¬ 
ary,  1702,  the  assembly  awarded  judgment  against  seven 
Yamasee  traders  for  failing  to  pay  for  skins,  for  burning 
Indian  houses,  killing  hogs,  stealing  guns,  etc.  The  method 
used  to  enforce  satisfaction  marked  the  beginnings  of  a  regu¬ 
lative  system.  The  governor  was  requested  to  empower  Thomas 
Nairne,  who  had  already  performed  some  of  the  duties  of  an 
Indian  agent,  to  carry  out  the  assembly’s  orders.30  Another  law 
was  also  passed  in  that  year,  at  Moore’s  request,  to  prevent 
traders  selling  goods  on  credit  and  to  appoint  ‘a  judicious  man’ 
to  regulate  trade  and  political  relations  among  the  Upper 
Creeks.31  Apparently  Moore  was  not  entirely  responsible  for 
the  failure  to  adopt  an  adequate  Indian  code.32 

“JCHA,  April  2,  1702.  See  Warrants  for  Lands,  1680-1692,  pp.  33,  66, 
103,  166;  ibid.,  1692-1711,  pp.  12,  17,  21,  32,  126,  for  warrants  for  over  4000 
acres  to  James  Moore. 

“JCHA,  November  16,  1700;  January  14,  15,  20,  21,  1702. 

30  Ibid.,  January  24,  1702. 

31  Not  printed,  but  referred  to  in  journals;  ibid.,  April  2,  August  14,  15, 
20,  22,  25,  27,  29,  1702.  Colonel  Stephen  Bull  was  sent  as  agent  to  the  Tala- 
poosas,  his  salary  to  begin  at  his  departure  from  Savannah  Town. 

32  From  an  allusion  during  the  discussions  of  1707  it  appears  that  in 
1703  Moore  was  an  advocate  of  public  trade. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


145 


As  a  matter  of  fact,  Indian  regulation  was  now  hopelessly 
entangled  in  the  bitter  factionalism  of  Carolina  politics.  The 
failure  of  the  St.  Augustine  campaign  and  the  debts  then  in¬ 
curred  had  stirred  up  vociferous  opposition  to  Moore  and  his 
friends.  The  malcontents  were  especially  numerous  in  Colleton 
county,  the  stronghold  of  the  dissenters.  Under  Sir  Nathaniel 
Johnson,  who  was  supported  by  Trott  and  others  of  Moore’s 
party,  provincial  politics  for  several  years  revolved  around  the 
famous  church  controversy.  Johnson,  wrote  Archdale,  in  hostile 
vein,  ‘by  a  Chimical  Wit,  Zeal  and  Art,  transmuted  or  turn’d 
this  Civil  Difference  into  a  Religious  Controversy.’33  But  other 
issues  were  also  involved  in  the  protracted  dispute :  the  claims 
of  the  Commons  House  of  Assembly  to  control  administration, 
and,  not  least,  the  complex  problem  of  regulating  the  Indian 
trade. 

One  of  Johnson’s  stoutest  opponents,  along  with  John 
Ash,  was  Thomas  Nairne  of  St.  Helena.  According  to  his  own 
account,  Nairne  drew  up  and  introduced  into  the  assembly  the 
addresses  of  thanks  to  the  Queen  and  the  House  of  Lords  for 
the  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  Conformity  and  Church  Acts,  and 
so  laid  himself  open  ‘to  the  hatred  of  the  Governor.’34  Nairne 
had  already  aligned  himself  with  Dr.  Edward  Marston,  whom 
Johnson  denounced  as  ‘the  pest  of  the  country,’  in  an  attack,  in 
1705,  upon  a  clerical  protege  of  the  governor,  the  Reverend 
Samuel  Thomas.  This  clergyman  had  been  sent  out  to  Caro¬ 
lina  in  1702  by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  response  to  the  appeal  of  Nairne  and  Robert  Stevens  for  a 
missionary  to  the  Yamasee.  Thomas  reported  on  his  arrival  that 
those  Indians,  at  war  with  Florida,  were  ‘not  at  leasure  to 
attend  to  instruction,  nor  is  it  safe,’  he  added,  ‘to  venture 
among  them.’  His  prudence  was  rewarded  by  the  governor, 
who  appointed  him  to  the  pleasant  cure  of  Goose  Creek,  where 
he  convinced  himself  that  efforts  to  convert  the  negro  slaves 
were  as  laudable  as  hazardous  missionary  labors  in  the  ‘Indian 
Land.’  But  Nairne  and  Stevens  excoriated  him  for  abandoning 
his  charge.  For  over  a  century,  Nairne  recalled,  the  Spanish 

33  Archdale,  Description,  1707,  p.  23,  reprinted  in  Carroll  (ed.),  Collec¬ 
tions,  II.  110.  See  Rivers,  Sketch,  chs.  viii-x,  and  McCrady,  S.  C.  under  the 
Prop.  Gov.,  chs.  xviii-xx. 

34  C.O.  5  :306,  no.  4. 


146 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Indians  now  in  Carolina  had  had  Christian  churches  among 
them.  ‘Now  if  we  take  not  care  equal  of  their  Salvation  as  the 
Spaniards  always  have  done,  what  a  good  fight  have  wee  been 
fighting  to  bring  so  many  people  from  something  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  to  downright  Barbarity  and  heathenism.’  But  Nairne’s 
interest  in  Indian  missions  was  not  altogether  the  product  of 
piety.  He  also  saw  the  usefulness  of  having  among  the  Indians 
persons  not  interested  in  trade  to  protect  them  from  injustice 
and  to  send  the  government  intelligence  of  Indian  affairs.  In 
1705  he  proposed  a  fund  for  the  purpose:  the  Queen  to  settle 
£100  annually  out  of  her  dues  in  Carolina,  the  Proprietors  to 
allow  £80,  and  the  rest  to  be  raised  by  a  tax  of  £4  a  year  on  the 
traders.35 

By  1706  the  ecclesiastical  dispute  was  abated.  But  much  of 
the  heat  of  the  quarrel  was  carried  over  into  the  debates  on 
Indian  affairs.  On  this  new  ground  the  opposition  to  the  ruling 
clique  of  Johnson,  Rhett,  and  Trott  was  reinforced  by  many 
supporters  of  Johnson’s  church  policy.  By  1707  they  were  se¬ 
curely  in  control  of  the  assembly.  As  before,  the  organization 
of  the  trade  was  involved.  But  the  crux  of  the  debate  was  now 
whether  the  governor  and  council,  or  the  Commons  House 
should  control  the  Indian  administration?  And  who  should 
enjoy  the  Indian  presents,  the  governor  or  the  public?  This 
clash  of  interest  was  intimately  connected  with  the  parallel 
struggle  for  the  appointment  by  the  assembly  of  the  public- 
receiver.  It  was  characteristic  of  this  frontier  province  that 
the  first  notable  contest  between  the  executive  and  the  popular 
branch  of  the  legislature  for  administrative  power — a  struggle 
which  developed  in  most  of  the  provinces  and  produced  pro¬ 
found  changes  in  their  constitutions  in  the  eighteenth  century — 
should  have  had  as  one  of  its  issues  the  administration  of 
Indian  affairs. 

In  the  spring  of  1706,  urging  regulation,  the  governor  as¬ 
sured  the  assembly  that  neither  ‘relations  or  any  particular 
Interest’  would  bias  him.30  The  reference  was  probably  to  his 

35  S.P.G.  MSS,  A,  II,  no.  156;  SCHGM,  IV.  221-30,  278-85;  V.  21-55; 
[Collection  of  printed  documents  relating  to  church  controversy,  etc.  Lon¬ 
don,  circa  1706]:  letter  of  Marston,  May  3,  1705;  Humphreys,  Historical 
Account,  1730,  pp.  81-3;  E.  B.  Greene,  ‘The  Anglican  Outlook,’  in  AHR, 
XX  72 

38  JCHA,  March  7,  1705/6. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


147 


son-in-law,  Colonel  Thomas  Broughton,  a  great  trader.  But 
one  ‘particular  interest’  proved  to  be  a  great  stumbling-block. 
This  was  the  valuable  perquisite  which  Johnson  and  earlier 
governors  had  enjoyed  of  retaining  all  presents  made  by  the 
Indians  to  the  province.  In  December,  1706,  Johnson  refused 
as  ‘penurious’  £200  a  year  in  lieu  of  these  presents,  an  amount 
equal  to  his  salary.37  The  opposition  scented  scandal  in  the 
practice,  and  later  brought  up  the  case  of  James  Child  in  con¬ 
firmation.  The  slave-dealers,  Nairne  asserted,  had  a  trick  of 
setting  Indians  in  the  English  alliance  to  surprise  each  other’s 
towns  in  order  to  make  a  quicker  sale  of  their  goods  for  slaves ; 
and  to  escape  punishment  they  had  ‘the  address  to  be  industrious 
in  procuring  presents  for  the  Governor  and  tradeing  in  partner¬ 
ship  with  his  Son-in-Law.’  James  Child,  he  said,  had  set  the 
Cherokees  upon  some  friendly  Indians  in  1706,  pretending 
that  he  acted  on  the  governor’s  orders.  They  took  about  160 
captives,  thirty  of  whom  Child  exposed  for  sale  in  the  Charles 
Town  slave-market,  declaring  that  half  were  for  the  governor. 
The  assembly  set  the  captives  free,  but  the  governor  paid  no 
heed  to  their  petitions  to  prosecute  Child.38  It  was  this  affair, 
apparently,  that  led  to  the  temporary  act  of  April,  1706,  to 
restrain  traders  charged  with  offenses  from  going  into  the 
Indian  country,  for  the  Commons  promptly  requested  Johnson 
to  apply  the  ban  to  Child.  Similar  charges  against  John  Mus- 
grove,  John  Pight,  and  Anthony  Probat,  traders,  were  venti¬ 
lated  in  the  assembly  in  1706.  The  state  of  the  trade  had  be¬ 
come  notorious,  and  there  were  ‘private  whispers  that  the 
governor  privately  Encouraged  these  Kinds  of  Actions.’39 

Late  in  1706  the  Commons  sent  up  a  bill  to  prohibit  presents 
to  the  governor  and  to  place  the  regulation  of  the  traders  in 
the  hands  of  their  own  commissioners.  The  issues  were  clearly 
drawn.  To  be  sure,  the  Commons  insisted  that  they  were  di¬ 
vesting  the  governor  of  neither  power  nor  profit,  but  merely 
endowing  their  commissioners  with  authority  not  already  pos¬ 
sessed  by  the  governor.  In  case  of  refusal  they  threatened  to 
carry  the  affair  not  only  to  the  Proprietors  but  to  the  Crown. 

37  Ibid.,  December  20,  1706. 

38  C.O.  5  :306,  no.  4 ;  and  petition  to  Proprietors  in  Huntington  Library. 

39  C.O.  5  :306,  no.  4;  JCHA,  April  2,  9,  November  23,  December  20,  1706; 
Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  274  (act  of  April  9,  1706,  enacted  for  six  months). 


148 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Johnson  was  resolute.  ‘I  offer  you,’  he  replied,  ‘a  regulation 
of  the  Indian  trade,  but  so  that  it  may  be  safe  to  the  country, 
honourable  and  profitable  to  myself,  and  no  ways  chargeable  to 
the  public.’40 

The  first  session  of  1707  was  stormy.  The  opposition  was 
in  a  mood  for  conquest,  and  pressed  the  attack  on  all  fronts. 
Nairne  was  again  directing  the  fight.  It  was  Nairne  with 
George  Smith  who  drafted  the  bill  declaring  the  right  of  the 
assembly  to  name  the  public  receiver.41  It  was  Nairne  who  drew 
up  an  address  to  the  Crown  on  the  grievances  of  the  country.42 
It  was  Nairne  who  led  the  battle  to  place  control  of  Indian 
affairs  in  the  hands  of  the  Commons  House.  Most  of  the  mem¬ 
bers,  the  House  later  declared,  had  received  specific  instruc¬ 
tions  from  their  constituents  to  pass  the  Indian  act,  ‘Demanded 
by  so  many  Assemblys  and  the  Universall  cry  of  the  People.’43 
In  the  spring  the  province  had  been  further  aroused  by  the 
affair  of  the  Savannah  Indians.  Resenting  encroachments  and 
other  injuries,  part  of  the  Savannah  had  begun  to  desert  their 
towns  at  the  fall-line  and  move  northward,  a  migration  which 
led  them  eventually  to  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania.  Richard 
Berresford  of  the  Commons  House  was  posted  off  to  check  the 
desertion,  without  any  commission  at  first  from  governor  and 
council,  who  claimed  sole  authority  over  Indian  negotiations. 
June  20,  Berresford  received  the  thanks  of  the  Commons  for 
reducing  the  Savannahs  and  investigating  abuses.  The  same 
day  Johnson  complained  that  the  lower  house  had  taken  ex¬ 
clusive  possession  of  Berresford's  journals.44  But  it  was  the 
control  of  the  Indian  trade,  rather  than  of  Indian  diplomacy, 
that  was  the  real  objective  of  the  popular  party.  This  control 
was  won  through  Nairne’s  Indian  act  of  July  19,  1707. 

Early  in  July,  1707,  Johnson,  without  a  conference,  re¬ 
jected  a  bill  for  a  public  stock  in  the  Indian  trade  as  ‘a  grand 

40  JCHA,  December  20,  1706,  January  29,  1706/7. 

41  Ibid.,  July  2,  1707. 

42  Ibid.,  June  27,  1707. 

43  Ibid.,  July  5,  1707. 

“Ibid.,  April,  June,  1707,  passim.  Further  difficulties  with  the  Savannah 
in  1708  led  to  the  despatch  of  Captain  James  Moore  (son  of  the  old  gov¬ 
ernor)  to  reduce  them;  cf.  ibid.,  February,  October,  November,  1708,  pas¬ 
sim;  Svvanton,  Early  History,  pp.  317  f. ;  Handbook  of  American  Indians, 
II.  533. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


149 


monopoly  and  against  the  Express  words  of  the  Charter.’45 
He  invited  legislation  ‘agreeable  to  the  Charter  and  their 
Lordships’  instructions’ ;  but  when  next  day  the  Commons  sent 
up  a  new  bill  under  a  similar  title  the  upper  house  returned  it 
on  the  technical  ground  that  a  bill  once  rejected  could  not  be 
reintroduced  in  the  same  session.  The  Commons  then  threatened 
to  hold  up  the  governor’s  cherished  project  for  fortifying 
Charles  Town.  ‘We  are  not  solicitous  to  provide  a  defence  for 
our  breasts,’  they  declared,  ‘when  we  may  at  the  same  time  re¬ 
ceive  a  mortall  Stabb  thro  our  Backs.’46  This  threat,  or  perhaps 
the  menace  of  an  appeal  to  the  Crown,  proved  effective.47  But 
Johnson’s  stubbornness  had  won  the  concession  of  £100  a  year 
payable  to  the  governor  and  his  successors  in  lieu  of  Indian 
presents;  and  also  a  lump  sum  not  mentioned  in  the  act  but 
entered  in  the  schedule  of  debts : 

[To]  the  Rt.  Honble.  the  Governor  Sr.  Nath.  Johnson  for  Con- 
centing  to  the  Indians  Trading  Act  .  .  .  £400.48 

The  Commons  sought  to  make  this  payment  contingent  upon 
Johnson’s  securing  the  approval  of  the  Proprietors  for  the  act, 
but  he  only  agreed  to  press  it  upon  them.49  ‘That  a  free  province 
should  be  forced  to  purchase  their  deliverance  from  abuses’ 
was  denounced  in  a  memorial  to  the  Proprietors  as  ‘a  corrup¬ 
tion  almost  beyond  example.’50 

The  anxiety  of  the  assembly  to  secure  a  guarantee  of  rati¬ 
fication  was  no  doubt  due  to  the  fact  that  their  act  ‘for  Regu¬ 
lating  the  Indian  Trade  and  making  it  Safe  to  the  Public’51 
involved  a  considerable  encroachment  by  the  popular  branch  of 
the  legislature  upon  administration.  The  whole  Indian  trade 
outside  of  the  settlements52  was  subjected  to  a  system  of  li¬ 
censing  and  regulation  under  the  control,  not  of  the  governor 
and  council,  nor  of  the  assembly  as  a  whole,  but  solely  of  the 

45  JCHA,  July  4,  1707.  See  also  ibid.,  March  6,  April  23,  1707. 

40  ibid.,  July  5,  1707. 

47  Ibid.,  July  5,  7,  11,  14,  15,  17,  18,  1707,  for  legislative  history. 

48  Ibid.,  July  19,  1707. 

40  Ibid.,  July  14,  15,  1707.  Nairne  wrote  of  this  deal:  ‘This  they  [the 
Commons]  did  with  much  reluctancy,  only  fear  of  danger  prevailed  with 
them.’  C.O.  5  :306,  no.  4. 

50  JCHA,  October  20,  1709. 

61  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  309  et  seq. 

52  On  the  Cusabo  and  the  other  ‘settlement  Indians,’  see  Swanton,  Early 
History,  pp.  31-72,  especially  71. 


150 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Commons.  The  machinery  consisted  of  a  board  of  Indian 
commissioners,  a  secretary,  and  an  agent,  all  appointed  for 
indefinite  terms  by  the  act,  and  removable  by  vote  of  the  Com¬ 
mons  House. 

There  were  nine  Indian  commissioners,  who  were  usually 
members  of  the  assembly.  As  a  rule  they  had  had  experience 
in  Indian  affairs,  though  like  the  agent  they  were  under  oath 
not  to  engage  in  trade,  directly  or  indirectly,  during  their 
tenure.  Ralph  Izard  was  the  first  president ;  Richard  Berres- 
ford,  another  commissioner,  had  acted  in  the  Savannah  affair ; 
Samuel  Eveleigh  and  Captain  Musgrove  were,  respectively, 
merchant  and  Indian  trader.  An  act  of  1712  added  the  gov¬ 
ernor,  the  popular  Charles  Craven,  to  the  board,  but  he  served 
only  a  few  months.53  The  board  was  required  to  meet  twice  a 
year,  in  February  and  August,  in  three-day  sessions.  Other 
meetings,  however,  were  frequent:  from  1710  to  1715  they 
averaged  two  or  three  each  month  from  March  to  December. 
In  their  corporate  capacity  the  commissioners  were  vested  with 
considerable  powers.  They  granted,  or,  at  their  discretion,  with¬ 
held,  the  licenses,  good  for  one  year,  which  all  traders  except 
those  in  the  settlements  must  procure.  They  issued  instructions 
to  the  agent  and  to  the  traders ;  the  latter  must  obey  or  forfeit 
their  licenses.  As  a  court  they  heard  appeals  from  the  agent’s 
decisions.54 

But  it  was  the  Indian  agent  who  stood  at  the  centre  of  the 
new  regulative  machinery.  For  a  salary  of  £250  he  was  obliged 
to  live  for  ten  months  in  each  year  among  the  tribes  subject 
to  South  Carolina,  to  visit  all  their  principal  towns,  redress 
grievances  and  supervise  the  trade.  He  was  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  with  authority  to  decide  all  cases  among  traders,  or 
between  Indians  and  traders,  involving  sums  of  under  £30 

53  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  381.  Not  extant,  but  the  journals  of  the 
assembly  and  the  board  indicate  its  character.  In  1713  and  1714  there  was 
much  discussion  of  further  legislation;  JCHA,  1713,  1714,  passim.  See 
Rawlinson  MSS  C,  943,  for  a  report  of  the  commissary,  the  Rev.  Gideon 
Johnston,  circa  1713,  which  reveals  his  unsuccessful  effort  to  secure  ap¬ 
pointment  to  the  board  in  order  to  promote  missionary  efforts  among  the 
Indians. 

54  Act  of  1707,  articles  i,  v,  xiii,  xxiv-xxvi,  xxix-xxx.  The  pay  during 
sessions  was  10s.  per  day.  The  journals  and  other  records  were  kept  by  a 
secretary  who  was  paid  10s.  a  day  for  his  attendance,  and  a  20s.  fee  for 
each  license. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


151 


currency.  He  could  examine  witnesses  under  oath,  send  down 
offenders  for  trial  at  Charles  Town,  and  direct  orders  and 
warrants  to  all  whites  in  the  Indian  country.  On  complaint  of 
a  merchant  against  a  trader  for  debt,  a  common  occurrence, 
the  agent  was  required  to  demand  securities  or  commit  the 
debtor  to  prison.55  To  these  duties  defined  by  law  the  board 
added  others  in  their  instructions :  supervising  the  traders’ 
morals,  upholding  their  influence  over  the  Indians,  preserving 
peace  between  tribes  in  the  Carolina  alliance,  and  converting 
‘as  many  Nations  of  Indians  as  possibly  you  can  to  embrace 
our  Amity  and  Friendship.’  He  was  also  to  act  as  a  political 
adviser  to  the  tribes  within  the  English  sphere  of  influence, 
‘Giving  the  King  and  head  men  advice  in  Relation  to  the  man¬ 
aging  their  people  the  Better  to  keep  them  in  Subjection,  and 
with  Example  and  arguments  drawn  from  a  parralell  with  our 
Government ;  and  always  as  much  as  in  you  lyes  keep  in  favour 
with  the  Chief  Men,  advising  and  assisting  them  to  Maintain 
the  Authority  given  them  by  this  Government.’56  The  Indian 
agent,  moreover,  was  the  chief  adviser  of  the  Charles  Town 
government  in  all  Indian  affairs. 

The  agent’s  office  took  him  frequently  upon  a  great  circuit 
of  the  southern  wilderness.  In  July,  1712,  John  Wright  was 
ordered  by  the  board  to  set  out  for  the  Indian  country  upon  a 
day  prescribed,  and  his  route  and  duties  were  laid  down  in  his 
instructions.  First,  he  should  go  to  Pocotaligo  Town,  to  settle 
all  differences  between  the  traders  and  the  Upper  Yamasee, 
thence  to  Altamaha,  in  the  lower  towns,  then  upstream  to  hold 
another  court  at  Palachacola.  To  the  Alabamas  he  was  in¬ 
structed  to  travel  by  way  of  Savannah  Town,  and  on  his  way  to 
send  an  express  to  the  trader,  Captain  Thomas  Welch,  to  get 
the  Chickasaw  chiefs  down  to  the  Alabamas.  But  if  they  failed 
him,  he  must  push  on  to  the  Chickasaw  country.  His  special 
mission  was  to  prevent  the  threatened  defection  of  the  Ala¬ 
bama  to  the  French,  by  redressing  their  grievances,  by  argu¬ 
ments  and  presents,  and,  if  necessary,  by  taking  hostages  and 
inciting  the  loyal  tribes  to  oppose  the  renegades.  This  accom¬ 
plished,  he  had  still  to  settle  ordinary  affairs  among  the  Tala- 

55  Articles  vii,  xi-xviii,  xx,  xxii-xxiii. 

"JIC,  July  9,  December  18,  1712. 


152 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


poosa  and  the  rest  of  the  Upper  and  Lower  Creeks.  From 
Coweta  he  was  directed  to  follow  the  path  to  the  Cherokee,  to 
act  once  more  as  a  magistrate  before  returning  to  Savannah 
Town.57  His  itinerary  thus  involved  a  journey  by  trading  path 
of  more  than  fifteen  hundred  miles. 

Obviously  an  extraordinary  task  was  placed  upon  the 
agent’s  shoulders,  calling  for  physical  courage  and  endurance, 
discretion,  and  skill  in  the  arts  of  forest  diplomacy.  The  early 
agents,  especially  Nairne,  were  perhaps  as  successful  as  could 
have  been  expected.  But  Nairne’s  real  accomplishments  were 
as  a  diplomat  and  a  partizan  leader  rather  than  as  an  ‘itinerary 
justice  among  the  Indians.’  The  weakness  of  the  Carolina  In¬ 
dian  system  lay  in  the  character  of  the  average  trader,  and  that 
the  laws  of  1707  and  1712  conspicuously  failed  to  reform. 
In  New  France,  where  the  coureurs  de  bois  had  a  comparable 
reputation  for  evil  living,  there  were  missionaries  at  hand  to 
check  some  of  the  worst  abuses.  But  the  efforts  of  Nairne  and 
others  to  secure  English  missionaries  even  among  the  nearest 
tribes  were  unsuccessful.  In  1712  the  Reverend  Francis  Le  Jau 
reported  to  the  Bishop  of  London  that  the  Yamasee  wanted 
missionaries,  but  that  ‘the  Indian  traders  have  always  dis¬ 
couraged  me  by  raising  a  world  of  Difficultyes  when  I  pro¬ 
posed  anything  to  them  relating  to  the  Conversion  of  the 
Indians.  It  appears  they  do  not  care  to  have  Clergymen  so  near 
them  who  doubtless  would  never  approve  those  perpetual  warrs 
they  promote  amongst  the  Indians  for  the  onely  reason  of 
making  slaves  to  pay  for  their  trading  goods ;  and  what  slaves ! 
poor  women  and  children;  for  the  men  taken  prisoners  are 
burnt  most  barbarously.’58 

In  1707  certain  notorious  abuses  were  outlawed:  the  ex¬ 
tortion  of  presents  for  governors,  the  enslaving  of  free  Indians, 
the  sale  of  rum  and  the  supplying  of  hostile  Indians  with  am¬ 
munition.59  Other  practices  were  banned  by  instructions  from 
the  board,  especially  the  accumulation  of  the  great  Indian 

57  Ibid.,  July  9,  1712. 

58  Fulham  Palace  MSS,  South  Carolina,  no.  10.  Le  Jau  said  he  intended 
to  consult  Mr.  Barnwell  regarding  this  project  when  he  returned  from 
North  Carolina  ‘as  his  plantation  and  settlement  borders  upon  the  Yamon- 
seas.’ 

M  Act  of  July  19,  1707,  articles  iii,  iv,  viii,  ix.  Traders  were  required  to 
file  bonds  of  £100  to  obey  the  law  and  the  agent’s  instructions  (article  ii). 


TRADE  REGULATION 


153 


■debts.60  One  witness  examined  by  the  Commons  described  the 
vicious  circle  of  rum,  chicane  and  debt,  which  was  in  a  fair 
way  to  ruin  the  trade.61  ‘It  was  a  general  thing  among  the 
traders  there,’  he  said,  referring  to  the  Yamasee,  ‘to  meet  the 
Indians  at  a  great  distance  off  their  Towns  when  they  come 
from  Warr,  and  ...  by  giving  rum  and  making  them  Drunk 
get  their  Slaves  or  Skinns  for  little  or  nothing,  to  the  great 
dissatisfaction  of  the  Indians  when  they  are  Sober,  and  that 
by  their  Selling  such  great  quantities  of  rum,  hath  occasioned 
them  to  be  very  much  in  Debt,  which  if  not  timely  prevented 
will  Occasion  Murther  to  be  Committed  amongst  them.’  Com¬ 
plaints  of  ill  conduct  filled  the  agents’  letters,  the  minutes  of 
the  board,  and  the  debates  on  frontier  affairs  in  the  Commons 
House.62  For  the  Commons  often  intervened  directly  in  Indian 
management.  In  June,  1711,  Benjamin  Quelch,  a  recent  ap¬ 
pointee  to  the  board,  laid  before  the  House  an  abstract  of 
the  agents’  letters  dealing  with  the  state  of  the  trade,  and  the 
Commons  entered  in  their  journal  ‘Remarks  on  the  Agent’s 
Letters’  which  were  closely  followed  by  the  Indian  commis¬ 
sioners  in  their  next  instructions  to  the  traders.63  Both  the 
board  and  the  assembly  seem  to  have  striven  earnestly  to  put 
the  trade  on  a  footing  of  justice  to  the  Indians,  profit  to  the 
merchants,  and  safety  to  the  province.  But  the  system  of  li¬ 
censes  upon  which  the  whole  regulative  machinery  was  based 
broke  down.  Many  traders  neglected  or  refused  to  pay  the  £8 
currency  for  a  license  and  to  give  the  bond  in  £100  to  obey  the 
instructions  of  agents  and  commissioners.  In  1713  the  board 
confessed  that  it  was  powerless  as  the  law  stood  to  prosecute 
for  arrears  of  license  fees.  In  August,  1714,  the  secretary  re¬ 
ported  that  practically  all  of  the  traders  were  without  licenses.64 
A  general  prosecution  was  planned,  but  the  Indians  within  a 
few  months  undertook  a  reformation  of  the  trade  in  their  own 
drastic  and  terrible  fashion. 

The  Indian  frontier  in  the  South  was  a  zone  of  intercolo- 

"JIC,  August  3,  1711. 

01  JCHA,  October  12,  1710. 

62  See  below,  pp.  165-7,  for  the  causes  of  the  Yamasee  War.  Efforts  to 
amend  or  replace  the  act  of  1707  were  made  in  November,  1707,  and  in 
1710,  1711,  1712,  1713,  1714.  JCHA,  passim. 

03  Ibid.,  June  13,  1711. 

“JIC,  July  7,  1713;  May  20,  August  31,  1714. 


154 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


nial  as  well  as  international  contacts  and  rivalries.  Except  when 
Indian  wars  in  1711  and  1715  prompted  some  mutual  aid,  the 
usual  relations  of  the  Carolinians  with  Virginia,  and  later  with 
Georgia,  were  those  of  jealous  rivalry  for  the  Indian  trade. 
This  led  to  discriminatory  legislation  and  to  bitter  controversies 
which  were  carried  home  for  settlement. 

The  area  of  conflict  with  Virginia  comprised  the  Catawba 
and  Cherokee  nations.  Curiously,  the  Charles  Town  govern¬ 
ment  was  aroused  to  the  French  danger  on  the  Mississippi 
quite  as  early  as  to  Virginian  rivalry  in  the  piedmont  and  the 
southern  Appalachians.  Carolinian  expansion  in  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century  had  been  mainly  southward  and  westward. 
Meanwhile,  the  elder  William  Byrd  and  the  other  successors 
of  Abraham  Wood  in  the  ‘foreign’  trade  had  been  sending  their 
caravans  to  the  Catawba  towns  by  the  famous  Occaneechi  path, 
described  by  the  younger  Byrd  in  his  ‘History  of  the  Dividing 
Line,’  and  by  a  circuitous  route  through  the  North  Carolina 
foothills,  to  the  Cherokee  beyond.  In  1686  Byrd  reported  that 
two  of  his  traders  had  been  killed  more  than  four  hundred 
miles  from  the  falls  of  the  James.  But  even  at  the  height  of 
this  trade  Virginia  exported  only  a  fraction  of  the  deerskins 
despatched  from  Charles  Town  to  England,  though  considera¬ 
bly  more  beaver.  From  1699-1715  the  average  was  about  one- 
quarter  of  the  Carolina  exports  of  deerskins.65 

By  1698  Jean  Couture  and  James  Moore  were  arousing 
interest  at  Charles  Town  in  the  Cherokee  country  and  the  land 
beyond.  In  October  the  assembly  made  the  first  of  a  series  of 
efforts  to  eliminate  Virginian  competition  within  the  charter 
limits,  when  the  Commons  resolved  ‘that  the  Virginians  be 
Prohibited  from  Tradeing  in  this  Province.’  This  resolution, 
and  one  of  1701  proposing  confiscation  of  goods,  died  with  the 
abortive  Indian  bills  of  those  years.66  In  1701,  however,  there 
was  passed  a  curiously  worded  act  ‘to  prevent  Horses  being 
brought  by  Land  from  the  Northern  Settlements  into  this 
Province,’  which  was  probably  intended  to  stop  the  pack-horse 

*5  William  Byrd,  Writings  (Bassett,  ed.),  preface,  p.  xviii ;  also  pp.  184  f., 
235-9;  Spotswood,  Letters,  I.  167;  Va.  Mag.  of  Hist,  and  Biog.,  XXV.  51  f. 
In  1716  the  agent  of  the  Virginia  Indian  company  told  the  Board  of  Trade 
‘that  formerly  there  were  10,000  Skins  Yearly  Imported  from  Virginia’ 
(JBT,  July  10,  1716).  See  Appendix  A.  Table  I. 

M  JCHA,  October  4,  1698 ;  February  20,  1700/1 


rRADE  REGULATION 


155 


trains  of  the  Virginia  traders.67  If  so,  it  apparently  remained  a 
dead  letter.  Though  the  Indian  act  of  1707  made  no  mention  of 
the  Virginia  traders,  the  problem  of  barring  them  from  the 
province  was  now  more  than  ever  under  discussion  at  Charles 
Town.  ‘As  to  the  Seizure  of  the  goods  belonging  to  the  Vir¬ 
ginia  Indian  Traders,  now  dealing  within  this  Government  it 
does  not  appeare  to  us,’  the  Commons  reluctantly  admitted, 
‘that  they  are  seizable  by  any  law  of  this  province,  but  if  it  may 
be  done  by  the  Laws  of  England  we  pray  your  Honor  to  put 
them  in  Execution  in  those  Cases.’  Governor  and  council,  how¬ 
ever,  found  a  Carolina  statute  to  their  purpose :  the  act  of  1703 
laying  duties  upon  exports  and  imports,  which  included  a  three¬ 
pence  export  duty  upon  deerskins.68  The  Virginians  refused  to 
pay  the  Carolina  customs,  an  addition,  of  course,  to  the  Vir¬ 
ginia  levies,  and  their  skins  were  confiscated.  When  a  trader, 
Robert  Hue,  presented  a  petition  for  redress  to  the  Commons 
House  it  was  not  entertained.69 

But  in  Virginia  and  in  England  these  complaints  found  a 
more  sympathetic  hearing.  Jenings,  the  lieutenant-governor  of 
Virginia,  denounced  this  ‘new  practice  never  offered  at  before,’ 
though  Virginia  had  long  traded  with  those  Indians.  Carolina’s 
aim  was  clearly  to  engross  the  trade.  He  urged  strongly  the 
adverse  effect  upon  exports  to  Virginia  of  English  manufac¬ 
turers.  Most  of  the  Indians  in  question,  the  Virginia  council 
declared,  lived  some  hundreds  of  miles  beyond  the  Carolina 
habitations.  The  College  of  William  and  Mary,  supported  by 
the  Virginia  duty  on  skins  and  furs,  also  joined  in  the  remon¬ 
strance.70 

For  nearly  a  year  the  Board  of  Trade  delayed  its  report 
for  the  reply  of  the  Proprietors.  They  then  asserted  their  fixed 

67  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  164.  The  original  motion  of  Stephen  Bull 
and  Robert  Fenwick,  both  traders,  pretty  clearly  indicates  the  purpose  of 
the  measure:  ‘that  Care  be  taken  to  prevent  horses  being  brought  into  this 
Government  from  Virginia  &  that  such  Care  be  taken  to  bring  the  Essawees 
[Catawba]  Indians  more  dependent  on  this  Government  by  discourageing 
the  Virginians  trading  among  them’  (JCHA,  February  13,  1700/1  ;  and  see 
ibid.,  February  19,  20,  24,  1700/1). 

08  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  200;  JCHA,  June  13,  1707. 

“  Ibid.,  October  25,  1707. 

70  Minutes  of  the  Virginia  council,  October  19,  1708,  in  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  I. 
691  ;  Calendar  of  Virginia  State  Papers,  I.  124;  Maggs  Brothers,  Bibl.  Am. 
(Catalogue  429),  no.  465. 


156 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


doctrine  in  all  such  disputes.  The  trade  must  be  ‘left  Free  and 
Open  to  Virginia.’  The  western  Indians  were  not  under  the 
government  of  South  Carolina.  On  general  principles,  ‘the 
laying  of  Duties  on  European  Goods  Carryed  through  one 
plantation  to  another,  has  ever  been  and  ought  Still  to  be  Dis¬ 
couraged.’  From  Great  Britain  Virginia  bought  quantities  of 
manufactured  goods  to  sell  to  the  Indians,  while  the  Carolinians 
carried  on  a  contraband  trade  in  European  commodities  from 
Curasao  and  St.  Thomas.  With  inferior  shipping  facilities  her 
traders  must  charge  higher  prices  to  the  Indians.  If  they  en¬ 
grossed  the  trade,  and  raised  prices  as  they  saw  fit,  there  was 
danger  that  the  Indians  would  be  supplied  by  the  French,  who 
would  use  them  to  annoy  the  English  colonies.  Apparently  the 
Board  did  not  understand  that  the  Carolinians  had  actually  a 
monopoly  against  any  other  English  traders  in  that  quarter 
and  were  the  only  real  champions  of  English  against  French 
trade.  The  Privy  Council  concurred,  and  forbade  the  levy  of 
the  duties.71 

But  the  Privy  Council  could  not  save  the  declining  Virginia 
trade.  The  Carolinians  of  that  generation  understood  nullifica¬ 
tion  in  practice  if  not  yet  in  theory.  Despite  the  passes  which 
the  traders  brought  from  Williamsburg,72  they  met  with  fre¬ 
quent  obstructions.  The  new  governor,  Alexander  Spotswood, 
made  himself  their  champion,  and  at  the  same  time  sought  to 
penetrate  by  a  new  route  through  the  mountains  to  the  western 
tribes  and  so  outflank  the  Carolinian  blockade.73 

In  1711  the  South  Carolina  assembly  prepared  for  a  new 
attack  by  an  address  to  the  Proprietors  complaining  of  the 
‘great  mischief  and  danger  to  this  province  by  the  intrusions 
and  approachments  of  the  Virginia  Traders.’  This  time  the 
Proprietors  should  be  better  informed  of  ‘the  bounds  of  this 
Government  and  the  Indians,’  and  therefore  better  prepared 
than  in  1708  to  assert  ‘their  just  rights  therein.’  The  new  act 
of  June  28,  1711,  was  nominally  one  of  regulation.  But  the 

''Acts  of  the  Privy  Council,  Colonial,  1680-1720,  pp.  610-4;  JBT,  Novem¬ 
ber  8,  10,  1707;  February  1,  May  3,  August  9,  19,  September  5,  1709;  C.O. 
5:1264,  P  48,  P  56,  P  72,  P  76;  C.O.  5:292,  pp.  6,  8,  22,  29.  C.O.  5:289, 
p.  153. 

”  Calendar  of  Virginia  State  Papers,  I.  135. 

73  See  below,  pp.  220-1. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


157 


memorial  made  clear  that  exclusion  was  intended.74  Again  the 
Virginians  were  made  subject  to  the  duties,  were  obliged,  in¬ 
deed,  to  make  returns  of  their  skins  to  the  agent  or  at  Savannah 
Town,  remote  from  their  usual  route.  Moreover,  they  were 
now  brought  within  the  scope  of  the  provincial  system  of  regu¬ 
lation,  and  required  to  take  out  licenses,  in  person  or  by  agent, 
at  Charles  Town.  The  preamble  argued,  plausibly,  that  freedom 
from  restraint  gave  them  an  unfair  advantage  in  trade  rivalry, 
and  that  it  was  essential  that  South  Carolina  have  the  power 
to  enforce  embargoes  against  disobedient  tribes.  But  all  this 
proved  chiefly  the  need  of  intercolonial  cooperation  or  imperial 
control.  The  law  was  enforced  with  some  rigor.  Several  Vir¬ 
ginians  had  taken  licenses  at  Charles  Town  even  before  its 
enactment.  In  1712  there  were  seizures  of  goods  and  slaves.75 
Spotswood  protested  at  home,  the  Board  of  Trade  drew  up 
another  representation,  and  the  Privy  Council  directed  the 
Proprietors  to  repeal  the  statute.70 

But  already  South  Carolina  had  abandoned  its  efforts,  twice 
pronounced  illegal,  to  check  the  Virginia  western  trade  by  re¬ 
strictions  and  confiscation.  Probably  the  chief  reason  was  that 
they  had  succeeded.  No  doubt  there  were  other  factors  in  the 
decline,  especially  geographical  ones,  but  certainly  by  1715  the 
Indian  trade  from  the  James  had  sunk  to  a  low  ebb.  In  1716, 
Cary,  the  London  agent,  declared  that  three-fourths  of  the  old 
commerce  was  lost.  Spotswood  gave  similar  testimony,  and 
defended  his  monopolistic  Indian  company  as  a  means  of  re¬ 
covery.  Even  the  Yamasee  War  did  not  permanently  affect 
Carolina’s  primacy.  Eventually  Spotswood  had  to  admit  that 
the  South  Carolina  government  had  ‘engrossed  all  the  Indian 
Trade  on  the  Southern  Continent  of  America.’77 

The  North  Carolinians  had  no  part  in  these  contests,  inter¬ 
colonial  and  international,  for  the  frontier  trade.  In  an  agri¬ 
cultural  sense,  to  be  sure,  North  Carolina  was  completely  a 

74  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes ,  II.  357-9;  JCHA,  February  3,  13,  June  20,  No¬ 
vember  3,  1711. 

76  See  additional  instructions  to  John  Wright,  JIC,  August  3,  1711;  and 
ibid.,  March  22,  1710/11,  July  9,  1712.  See  also  JCHA,  August  12,  1712, 
regarding  seizures  and  fear  that  the  Virginians  might  take  a  different  route. 

79C.O.  5  :1335,  no.  78;  JBT,  December  19,  1712;  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  I.  863; 
Acts  of  P.C.,  Colonial,  1680-1720,  p.  614. 

"JBT,  July  10,  1716;  Spotswood,  Letters,  II.  235. 


158 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


frontier  colony.  But  trade  with  the  Indians  on  more  than  a 
local  scale  required  the  capital  accumulations  of  prosperous 
planters  and  merchants,  and  direct  mercantile  connection  with 
England.  One  frontier  problem,  however,  was  shared  by  all 
three  southern  colonies :  the  problem  of  defense  against  the 
Indians  in  the  crises  of  1711  and  171 5. 78  In  spite  of  some 
mutual  aid,  these  episodes  increased  rather  than  diminished  the 
prejudices  and  suspicions  which  were  the  normal  atmosphere 
of  intercolonial  relations  in  the  South. 

Virginia,  certainly,  played  less  than  a  generous  part  in  the 
Tuscarora  rising  of  171 1-1712. 79  In  the  end  the  royal  province 
furnished  only  a  loan  of  clothing  for  three  hundred  non-existent 
North  Carolina  troops.  Spotswood,  to  be  sure,  was  able  to 
make  out  a  case  in  England  to  acquit  himself  of  standing  ‘an 
idle  Spectator  of  the  Miserys’  of  his  fellow-subjects.  He  was 
hampered  by  factionalism  in  North  Carolina  and  by  political 
opposition  at  Williamsburg.  The  Virginia  Burgesses  declared 
for  the  extirpation  of  the  Tuscarora,  but  quarrelled  hopelessly 
over  raising  requisite  funds.  They  also  opposed  the  governor’s 
prudent  efforts  to  isolate  the  conflict  by  making  a  treaty  with 
eight  towns  of  Tuscarora  neutrals.  Barnwell’s  sneer  that  Vir¬ 
ginia  ‘begged  a  most  ignominious  neutrality  of  those  cowardly 
miscreants,  which  they  were  gracious  to  grant’80  was  un¬ 
fair,  but  nothing  in  Spotswood’s  own  conduct  justified  his 
eagerness  to  publish  at  home  ‘this  Mr.  Barnwell’s  Treachery’  or 
to  pose  as  the  warden  of  the  southern  and  western  border.  His 
patronising  allusions  to  hopes  of  reducing  the  enemy  ‘by  the 
Assistance  of  the  forces  sent  from  South  Carolina’  were  made 
ridiculous  by  the  brilliant  campaign  of  the  South  Carolina 
‘army’  in  1712. 81  It  was  not  in  human  nature,  perhaps,  for 
the  Carolinians  to  refrain  from  asserting  their  sense  of  moral 

7SJBT,  August  16,  1720:  testimony  of  John  Barnwell  that  North  and 
South  Carolina  were  independent  in  all  respects,  with  different  courts,  laws, 
etc.,  ‘and  but  little  Communication  with  each  other,  except  that  when  the 
People  of  North  Carolina  have  been  in  Danger  from  the  Indians,  they  have 
been  supported  from  South  Carolina.’ 

70  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  I.  810-992,  especially  pp.  888  f.,  890  f.,  895;  Journals 
of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  1712-1726,  passim  (see  index  under  Tuscarora, 
South  Carolina,  Barnwell,  etc.)  ;  H.  L.  Osgood,  Am.  Cols,  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  II.  227-33,  and  references  below. 

80  Va.  Mag.  of  Hist,  and  Biog.,  V.  400. 

81  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  I.  862. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


159 


superiority.  ‘We  are  sorry  and  amazed,’  the  Commons  House 
declared,  ‘that  they  to  whom  God  has  given  greater  power  and 
opportunities,  should  be  so  deficient  in  giving  that  assistance, 
which  was  ever  due  to  human  nature,  and  that  any  who  have 
British  blood  in  their  veins  should  regard  the  destruction  of 
their  neighbors  as  a  Tragedy  on  a  Theatre.’82 

From  worse  calamities  North  Carolina  was  saved  by  aid 
from  the  south.  On  the  first  news  of  the  massacres  the  assembly 
at  Charles  Town  appropriated  £4000  and  sent  off  an  army  of 
thirty  whites  and  several  hundred  Indians,  commanded  by  Col¬ 
onel  John  Barnwell.83  But  the  Indians,  mainly  recruited  from 
the  smaller  tribes,  were  constantly  deserting,  and  proved  thor¬ 
oughly  insubordinate.  Only  Barnwell’s  own  Yamasee  company 
could  be  measurably  trusted.  At  the  end  of  a  march  by  way  of 
the  Congaree,  Waxhaw,  and  Saraw  towns,  Barnwell  found 
himself  in  January,  1712,  in  the  midst  of  the  Tuscarora  forts 
on  the  upper  Neuse  and  Pamlico,  without  guides  or  supplies, 
for  the  news  of  his  approach  had  miscarried.  The  Torhunta 
(or  Narhontes)  fort  he  carried  by  assault,  whereupon  most  of 
his  Indians  made  off  with  their  spoils.  But  with  his  ‘brave 
Yamasee’  he  plundered  and  destroyed  several  towns  in  a  march 
which,  he  boasted,  ‘to  the  immortall  Glory  of  South  Carolina 
has  struck  the  Dominion  of  Virginia  with  Amazement  and 
Wonder.’  To  the  wretched  settlers  at  Bath  he  brought  relief, 
and  built  Fort  Barnwell  at  the  junction  of  Cotechney  Creek 
and  the  Neuse  to  protect  the  German  Palatine  settlements.  But 
he  was  soon  hopelessly  at  odds  with  his  North  Carolinian  allies. 
Hancock’s  Town  was  the  remaining  Tuscarora  stronghold. 
Barnwell  raised  his  first  siege  of  the  place  to  save  a  number 
of  prisoners  from  execution.  But  the  Tuscarora  broke  their 
promise  to  release  the  prisoners  and  early  in  April  Barnwell 
again  invested  the  fort.  Many  of  his  white  troops  were  nursing 
wounds,  and  his  Indians  showed  themselves  unsteady  in  as¬ 
sault.  One  attack  convinced  Barnwell  that  this  method  of  ending 
the  war  was  too  costly.  Supplies  were  running  low ;  the  attitude 

82  JCHA. 

83  JCHA,  October  26,  27,  November  2,  3,  6,  8,  9,  1711.  See  Va.  Mag.  of 
Hist,  and  Biog.,  VI.  42-55,  for  journal  of  Barnwell  expedition;  also  Col. 
Rec.  N.  C.,  I.  839,  874  f.  Barnwell’s  route  is  shown  on  C.O.  Maps,  Carolina, 
4,  reproduced  in  Crown  Collection,  III.  17,  18.  See  also  maps  in  SCHGM , 
X,  opposite  pp.  33,  37. 


160 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


of  the  northern  Tuscaroras  was  uncertain;  the  Virginia  troops 
had  not  yet  been  raised.  He  therefore  decided  to  accept  a  sur¬ 
render  upon  terms  which  left  ‘above  100  murderers  unpunished.’ 

This  was  the  clapped-up  peace  which  Governor  Hyde  de¬ 
nounced  and  against  which  Spotswood  railed.  Another  charge 
against  Barnwell  was  that  after  the  truce  some  of  his  Indians 
attacked  the  Tuscarora  and  provoked  new  massacres.  But  no 
white  commander  could  ever  be  held  fully  responsible  for  the 
insubordination  of  his  Indians.  Barnwell  lacked  neither  cour¬ 
age  nor  good  faith,  but  certainly  he  failed  in  tact.  He  was 
openly  contemptuous  of  the  North  Carolinians,  and  had  appar¬ 
ently  won  the  special  enmity  of  the  Pollock  faction  by  his 
association  with  Moseley — hence  the  worst  charges  against  him, 
to  which  Spotswood  gave  currency  without  scruple.  Rather 
naturally  the  distressed  and  incompetent  North  Carolina  gov¬ 
ernment  in  their  later  appeals  for  aid  at  Charles  Town  de¬ 
scribed  him  as  persona  non  grata .84 

On  his  return,  wounded,  Barnwell  was  thanked  by  the  South 
Carolina  assembly,  and  helped  to  plan  the  new  campaign.85 
For  Craven  had  appealed  to  the  assembly  to  overlook  the  bad 
conduct  of  the  neighboring  government  and  to  send  another 
expedition.  The  Indians,  Barnwell  advised,  would  never  attempt 
a  fort  unless  led  by  a  considerable  number  of  whites,  nor  could 
the  Tuscarora  be  destroyed  within  a  reasonable  period,  but  a 
lasting  peace,  which  was  more  to  the  interest  of  North  Caro¬ 
lina,  might  be  imposed.  When  Robert  Daniel,  of  St.  Augustine 
fame,  demanded  an  ‘extravagant  reward,’  James  Moore,  son 
of  the  old  governor,  was  given  command.  His  officers — 
Mackay,  Cantey,  Hastings,  and  the  rest — were  a  notable  group 
of  Indian  fighters,  as  their  services  in  this  war  and  the  next 
were  to  show.  This  time  the  auxiliaries  were  recruited  from 
the  larger  warlike  tribes :  Cherokee,  Creek,  and  Catawba. 
Spotswood’s  report  of  850  Indians  was  probably  exaggerated. 

84  See  Craven’s  complaint  against  Barnwell  in  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  I.  903. 

85  On  the  second  campaign  see  Joseph  Barnwell,  ‘The  Second  Tuscarora 
Expedition,’  in  SCHGM,  X.  33  et  scq.  (with  map).  See  also  JCHA,  April  2, 
4,  9,  May  14,  December  2,  1712;  August  6,  7.  8,  November  17,  19,  27,  De¬ 
cember  5,  18,  1713;  May  13,  June  8,  1714;  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  881  f.,  892-4; 
Boston  News  Letter,  March  9,  1713.  Heinrich,  in  La  Louisiane,  p.  Ixviii, 
assumes  without  warrant  that  the  Tuscarora  War  arrested  the  English 
trading  offensive  for  two  years. 


TRADE  REGULATION 


161 


Fewer  Indians  were  raised  than  Craven  had  hoped,  and 
charges  were  laid  against  several  Creek  and  Cherokee  traders 
of  hindering  the  Indians  from  marching  against  the  Tuscarora 
— ‘profligate  wretches,’  said  Craven,  ‘that  for  sordid  gain 
would  betray  their  country.’  But  in  any  case  the  army  proved, 
as  the  governor  predicted,  ‘a  sufficient  Body  to  put  a  good  end 
to  the  War.’  Moore  marched  northward  by  the  traders’  path. 
In  North  Carolina  his  auxiliaries  had  to  forage  for  their  own 
supplies,  and  made  themselves  almost  as  dreaded  as  the  Tus¬ 
carora.  However,  on  March  20,  1713,  Moore  stormed  and 
burned  the  Indian  fort  of  Nooherooka.  It  was  a  hard-fought 
action.  The  Carolinians  lost  22  whites  killed,  and  24  wounded, 
besides  35  Indians  killed  and  58  wounded.  The  army  took  392 
prisoners,  and  192  scalps.  Many  of  the  Tuscarora  were  burned 
in  the  fort.  Moore  thought  the  total  loss  of  the  enemy,  killed 
and  captured,  was  nearly  1,000.  Their  power,  certainly,  was 
broken.  But  before  Moore  had  completed  their  reduction,  all 
his  Indians  except  180  decamped  to  South  Carolina  to  sell  their 
slaves  to  the  traders.  Peace  was  soon  made.  Most  of  the  Tus¬ 
carora  who  survived  their  terrible  punishment  retired  in  the 
next  years  to  New  York  to  join  the  Iroquois  league  as  the  sixth 
nation. 

Moore’s  success,  and  his  gallantry,  helped  to  restore  the 
goodwill  of  the  harassed  North  Carolinians,  ruffled  by  Barn¬ 
well’s  bluntness.  Two  years  later  they  were  able  to  repay  the 
aid  of  South  Carolina.  In  1715  Maurice,  a  younger  brother  of 
James  Moore,  headed  the  North  Carolina  militia  who  came  to 
the  assistance  of  South  Carolina  in  its  most  dangerous  hour. 
And  these  men  joined  in  the  march  to  the  Cherokee  country,  an 
exploit  which  for  forty  years  gave  measurable  security  to  the 
whole  southern  border 


CHAPTER  VII 
The  Yamasee  War,  1715-1716 

The  Yamasee  War,  so-called,  differed  notably  from  King 
Philip’s  War  in  New  England,  and  from  the  Virginia  troubles 
of  1675-1676.  Episodes,  these  were,  in  the  advance  of  the 
farming  frontier.  But  the  events  of  1715-1716  on  the  southern 
border  constituted,  rather,  a  far-reaching  revolt  against  the 
Carolinian  trading  regime,  involving  the  Creeks,  the  Choctaw, 
and  to  a  less  extent  the  Cherokee,  as  well  as  the  tribes  of  the 
piedmont  and  of  the  Savannah  River  and  Port  Royal  districts. 
To  be  sure,  the  Yamasee,  and  perhaps  also  the  piedmont  In¬ 
dians,  were  to  some  degree  apprehensive  of  encroachment  upon 
their  lands.  But  they  shared  with  the  Creeks,  probable  authors 
of  the  conspiracy,  and  with  the  other  interior  tribes  a  greater 
resentment  of  the  tyrannies  of  the  Charles  Town  traders.  In  its 
causes,  then,  the  Yamasee  War  was  sui  generis.1  In  its  results, 
leading  as  it  did  to  the  awakening  of  the  English  colonial 
authorities  to  the  danger  of  French  encirclement,  to  a  consti¬ 
tutional  revolution  in  South  Carolina,  to  far-reaching  migra¬ 
tions  of  the  southern  tribes,  and  to  a  re-orientation  of  wilderness 
diplomacy  in  the  South  which  altered  seriously  the  prospects  of 
English,  French,  and  Spanish  rivalry,  it  takes  rank  with  the 
more  famous  Indian  conspiracies  of  colonial  times. 

After  the  destruction  of  the  Scotch  colony  in  1686  the  Port 
Royal  region  was  left  vacant  for  some  years  by  the  Carolinians. 
The  Yamasee,  meanwhile,  moved  from  St.  Helena  and  Hilton’s 
Head  Island,  where  they  had  been  settled  by  Cardross,  to  the 
adjacent  mainland,  between  the  Combahee  and  Savannah  Riv¬ 
ers.  As  late  as  1703,  the  removal  of  the  Yamasee  even  nearer 
the  settlements  was  discussed,  and  room  was  found  for  the 
Yoa,  the  last  migrants  from  Guale,  north  of  the  other  Yamasee 
towns.2  By  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  however,  the 
English  frontier  was  again  advancing  towards  Port  Royal. 

1  This  is  not,  certainly,  the  usual  view.  For  a  too  sweeping  generalization 
regarding  the  colonial  Indian  wars  see  Edward  Channing,  History  of  the 
United  States,  I.  454.  See  also  H.  L.  Osgood,  Am.  Col.  in  the  Seventeenth 
Century,  II.  432.  The  significance  of  this  war  in  Indian  history  is  clearly 
recognized  by  Swanton  in  his  Early  History,  pp.  100  f. 

2JCHA,  January  15,  16,  19,  February  3,  18,  1702/3. 

[162] 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


163 


After  1694  Colleton  county  was  becoming  a  region  of  great 
cattle-ranches.  Southward,  in  Port  Royal  (later  Granville) 
county,  the  coastal  islands  were  rapidly  occupied  between 
1698  and  1707.  Thus  in  1698  the  surveyor  was  directed  to  lay 
out  a  thousand  acres  on  St.  Helena  Island  for  John  Stewart,  on 
‘a  neck  of  land  formerly  inhabited  by  the  Pocatalagoes  lying 
Northwest  of  the  lands  settled  by  Mr.  Thomas  Niern.’3  Nairne 
was  a  leading  planter  of  the  Colleton-Granville  border,  and  a 
partizan  leader  of  the  Yamasee  in  the  Florida  raids  of  Queen 
Anne’s  War.  For  some  years  before  he  became  a  regularly  ap¬ 
pointed  provincial  Indian  agent,  he  had  been  employed  to  keep 
the  Yamasee  traders  in  order.  Between  1703  and  1711  he  re¬ 
ceived  six  additional  grants  in  Granville  County,  totalling  2,130 
acres.4  John  Barnwell  was  a  later  settler  on  this  frontier  who 
also  became  a  notable  Indian  fighter  and  negotiator,  sharing 
Nairne’s  expansive  views  of  western  policy.  An  Irishman  of 
good  family  who  came  out  to  Carolina  about  1701,  Barnwell 
lost  his  offices  through  opposition  to  Johnson  and  Trott,  and 
retired  to  Port  Royal  to  rebuild  his  fortunes.5  His  plantation 
and  settlement  lay  at  the  northern  end  of  Port  Royal  Island, 
directly  across  from  the  Yamasee  lands.  Under  ‘Tuscarora 
Jack’  Barnwell  the  Yamasee  served  effectively  in  the  North 
Carolina  Indian  war. 

The  intrusion  of  the  cattle-raisers  which  reached  its  peak  in 
1707,  led  that  year  to  the  passage  of  an  important  act  ‘to  Limit 
the  Bounds  of  the  Yamasee  Settlement,  to  prevent  Persons 
from  Disturbing  them  with  their  Stocks,  and  to  Remove  such 
as  are  settled’  within  the  bounds  described.6  The  reservation 
embraced  the  island  of  Coosawhatchie,  and  the  mainland  be¬ 
tween  the  Combahee,  Port  Royal,  and  Savannah  Rivers  and 

3  Warrants  for  Lands,  1692-1711,  pp.  152,  174.  Present  State  of  Europe . 
XI.  295  f.  (August,  1700),  referred  to  recent  letters  from  Carolina  reporting 
‘that  the  River  of  Port  Royal  becomes  every  Day  better  known,  and  more 
inhabited.’ 

4JCHA,  January  20,  21,  24,  1701/2;  C.O.  5:398,  ‘South  Carolina,  An 
Abstract  of  the  Records  of  all  Grants  of  Lands.’ 

5  Letters  in  SCHGM,  II.  47-50  and  notes.  From  C.O.  5:398  it  appears 
that  Barnwell  received  grants  of  2,038  acres,  1705-1708. 

“Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  317;  9,376  acres  were  granted  in  Granville 
county  in  1707  (C.O.  5:398).  For  other  years  the  figures  were:  1702,  6,272 
acres;  1703,  1,470  acres;  1704,  2,230  acres;  1705,  8,428  acres;  1706,  7,394 
acres;  1708,  800  acres;  1709,  3,780  acres;  1710,  4,835  acres;  1711,  8,094 
acres;  1712,  1713,  none;  1714,  1,796  acres;  1715  (to  the  war),  2,984  acres. 


164 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


an  inland  boundary  drawn  vaguely  from  the  head  of  the  Com- 
bahee  River  to  the  head  of  the  Savannah.  All  of  Granville 
county  with  the  exception  of  the  sea-islands  was  thus  set  apart 
for  the  ten  towns  of  the  Yamasee.  The  Broad  River  was  appar¬ 
ently  the  line  between  the  two  divisions  of  the  tribe.  The  Upper 
Towns  were  Pocotaligo,  Huspaw,  Yoa,  Sadkeche  and  Tomatly; 
the  Lower  Towns  comprised  Altamaha,  Pocasabo,  Chasee, 
Oketee,  and  probably  Tulafina.7  For  generations  after  its  deser¬ 
tion  by  the  Yamasee  this  region  north  of  Port  Royal  retained 
the  name  of  the  ‘Indian  Land.’ 

By  1711,  certainly,  Indian  resentment  had  been  aroused  by 
the  continued  infiltering  of  the  whites.  In  July  the  Yamasee 
chiefs  complained  to  the  Indian  commissioners  that  certain 
persons  had  taken  up  land  within  their  reservation.  A  prose¬ 
cution  was  ordered  against  nine  interlopers  and  the  deputy- 
surveyor  who  had  illegally  run  out  their  lands;  apparently  the 
offenders  were  vigorously  dealt  with.8  In  1711  a  highway  was 

7  Compare  with  the  list  in  Swanton,  Early  History,  p.  97,  where  Sad¬ 
keche,  Tomatly,  Oketee,  and  Tulafina  are  omitted.  Swanton  also  includes 
Ilcombe,  Dawfuskee  (with  some  question),  and  possibly  Peterba,  but  on 
questionable  evidence.  JIC,  July  9,  1712,  named  Pocotaligo  and  Altamaha 
as  head-towns  of  the  two  divisions.  Pocataligo  River,  a  small  tributary  of 
the  Broad,  bounds  present  Beaufort  and  Jasper  counties.  Huspah  Neck  is 
between  the  Combahee  and  the  Whale  Branch.  The  Yoa  occupied  adjoining 
lands.  Sadkeche  (see  JCHA,  February  5,  1703)  survives  in  Salkehatchie, 
the  name  of  a  hamlet  at  the  Atlantic  Coast  Line  crossing  of  the  Combahee. 
Farther  north,  probably  in  Colleton  county,  was  fought  in  1715  the  Sadkeche 
or  ‘Saltketchers’  fight.  Probably  this  town  was  the  Spanish  Salchiches,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Swanton  ‘an  unidentified  tribe  living  inland’  from  Guale,  appar¬ 
ently  Muskhogeans  with  ‘numerous  relatives  in  .  .  .  Guale’  (pp.  60,  83). 
Tomatly  town  of  the  Yamasee  was  mentioned  in  JCHA,  February  5,  1703, 
and  in  JIC,  July  28,  1711 ;  it  probably  gave  the  name  to  Landgrave  Belling¬ 
er’s  great  barony  ( SCHGM ,  XV.  9),  and  hence  to  the  village  in  Beaufort 
county.  The  name  appears  also  among  Creeks  and  Cherokees ;  in  this  con¬ 
nection  it  is  of  interest  that  Cherokee  tradition  in  1727  held  that  the  Yama¬ 
see  (possibly  this  town?)  were  formerly  Cherokee,  driven  out  by  the 
Tomahitans  (C.O.  5 :387,  p.  132).  Pocasabo  is  another  surviving  place- 
name.  The  ‘Okata’  cassique  was  named  in  JCHA,  January  24,  1702;  Sir 
John  Colleton’s  barony,  laid  out  in  1718  north  of  Hilton’s  Head  Island,  was 
called  ‘Oketee’  (SCHGM,  XIII.  119-25),  and  the  name  is  a  common  one 
in  Jasper  county.  Ocute  and  Altamaha  were  neighboring  towns  in  central 
Georgia  in  the  16th  and  17th  centuries  (Swanton,  Early  History,  p.  95). 
Swanton,  to  be  sure,  identifies  Ocute  and  Hitchiti  (p.  174),  but  ‘Aequite’  in 
the  De  Crenay  map  was  more  likely  Achitia.  There  is  no  contemporary  Caro¬ 
linian  record  of  Tulafina,  but  an  estuary  of  the  Coosawhatchie,  in  Jasper 
county,  is  named  Tulifinny,  which  is  strikingly  like  the  name  of  the  interior 
town  in  Guale  associated  with  Salchiches  (Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  60, 
82,  83). 

8  JIC,  July  27,  August  15,  September  13,  1711. 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


165 


ordered  extended  from  South  Edisto  River  to  the  islands  of 
Port  Royal  and  St.  Helena.9  In  1711,  also,  after  two  years’ 
discussion,  the  Lords  Proprietors  issued  a  patent  for  the  erec¬ 
tion  of  a  seaport  on  Port  Royal,  to  be  called  Beaufort  Town.10 
Efforts  were  made  in  England  to  attract  new  settlers  to  the 
region,  especially  west-countrymen  and  Swiss,  and  its  con¬ 
venience  in  carrying  on  the  Indian  trade  was  one  of  the  advan¬ 
tages  extolled  in  the  advertisements.11  In  1712  the  parish  of 
St.  Helena  was  created,  embracing  all  of  Granville  county,  and 
William  Guy,  a  minister  supported  by  the  S.P.G.,  was  appointed 
to  the  charge.12  Possibly  rumors  of  these  plans  to  make  Port 
Royal  at  last  a  real  settlement  produced  the  uneasiness  among 
the  Yamasee  that  their  lands  were  to  be  taken  away,  which  the 
Indian  commissioners  in  1712  were  at  some  pains  to  allay.13 

But  in  none  of  the  contemporary  analyses  of  the  causes  of 
the  war  was  the  pressure  of  settlement  accounted  a  real  factor. 
It  was  generally  agreed  that  the  real  mischief  had  been  done 
among  the  Yamasee  as  well  as  among  their  confederates  by 
lawless  and  oppressive  Indian  traders,  ‘notoriously  infamous 
for  their  wicked  and  evil  actions.’14 

The  sessions  of  the  Indian  commissioners  supplied  detailed 
evidence  of  the  callous  brutality  of  some  of  the  traders,  of 
petty  thieving,  of  illegal  enslavement  of  free  Indians,  of  the 
abuse  of  rum  to  facilitate  sharp  dealing,  of  the  use  of  cheating 
weights,  and  like  knaveries.15  At  many  points  they  confirmed 
the  prejudiced  but  telling  indictment  of  the  Carolina  traders  sent 
by  a  Virginia  trader  in  1715  to  the  Virginia  agent  in  London.16 
David  Crawley  accused  them  of  killing  the  Indians’  hogs  and 
fowls,  gathering  corn  and  peas  and  watermelons  without  leave, 
and  paying  not  half  the  value,  or  balancing  the  account  with 
blows.  For  a  paltry  wage  Indian  burdeners,  he  charged,  were 

9  McCord  (ed.),  Statutes,  IX.  14;  and  see  also  ibid.,  p.  32. 

10  C.O.  5  :292,  pp.  14,  15,  36,  38,  39.  See  H.  A.  M.  Smith,  ‘Beaufort — the 
Original  Plan  and  the  Earliest  Settlers,’  in  SCHGM,  IX.  141-60. 

11  See  the  promotion  tracts,  A  Letter  from  South  Carolina,  London,  1710, 
of  which  Nairne  was  probably  the  author,  and  [John  Norris],  Profitable 
Advice  for  Rich  and  Poor,  London,  1712. 

12  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  372. 

13  JIC,  June  20,  1712. 

14  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  91  (Article  xvi  of  trade  act  of  1719). 

15  Above,  pp.  152-5. 

15  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  51. 


166 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


forced  to  carry  packs  seventy  to  one  hundred  pounds  in  weight 
for  three  hundred  to  five  hundred  miles.  ‘And  when  they  had 
sent  the  men  away  about  their  business,  or  they  were  Gon  a 
hunting,  [I]  have  heard  them  brag  to  each  other  of  Debauch¬ 
ing  their  wives.’  The  agent,  John  Wright,  he  denounced  for 
maintaining  a  great  state  among  the  Indians,  requiring  many 
of  them  ‘to  wait  on  [him]  and  carry  his  Lugage  and  packs  of 
skins  from  one  town  to  another  purely  out  of  Ostentation,  say¬ 
ing  in  my  hearing  hee  would  make  them  Honour  him  as  their 
Governour.’  Traders  were  frequently  arrested  and  brought  be¬ 
fore  the  Indian  board  for  especially  scandalous  behavior,  but 
the  agents’  jurisdiction  was  too  large  to  be  effective.  Even  so, 
a  frontier  clergyman  was  probably  justified  in  asserting  that 
‘the  Indians  of  late  years  have  had  as  little  grounds  of  Com¬ 
plaint  as  ever  they  had  since  the  settlement  of  the  Province.’17 
Certainly  special  care  had  been  taken  by  the  assembly  and  the 
board  to  keep  order  among  the  Yamasee,  whose  alliance  was 
an  essential  defense  of  the  southern  border.  But  the  grievances 
of  the  Indians  were  real,  and  regulation  had  failed  to  remove 
them.  The  essence  of  the  Carolina  system  was  a  licensed  trade. 
In  practice  many  traders  neglected  to  take  out  licenses  and  dis¬ 
regarded  the  instructions  of  commissioners  and  agent.  Nor 
were  the  greed  and  lust  of  the  traders  at  all  restrained  by  the 
presence  of  missionaries,  as  among  the  French.  The  attempt  of 
the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  1702  to 
Christanize  the  Yamasee  had  come  to  nought.18  On  the  eve  of 
the  war,  to  be  sure,  a  young  Yamasee  chieftain  was  sent  over 
to  England  ‘to  be  instructed  in  Literature  and  Religion  and 
dispos’d  to  a  Love  of  the  English  Nation,’  and  there  received 
baptism  from  Bishop  Compton.  But  Prince  George  returned 
to  find  his  kinsfolk  in  revolt,  fleeing  to  Florida.19 

‘Another  occasion  and  that  a  very  great  one  of  the  Warr,’ 
declared  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bull,  grew  out  of  ‘the  vast  Debts’  of  the 
Indians  to  the  traders.20  Repeated  efforts  had  been  made  by  the 

17  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  part  1,  23  (Letter  from  William  Tredwell  Bull, 
August  10,  1715). 

18  Ibid.,  A,  II,  no.  156;  SCHGM,  IV.  221-30,  278-85;  V.  21-55,  95-99. 

10  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  no.  34;  ‘Abstract  of  the  Proceedings  of  the 
S.P.G.,  1712-1713,’  in  A  Sermon,  1714,  p.  46;  Pascoe,  Tioo  Hundred  Years 
of  the  S.P.G.,  pp.  16  f. ;  C.O.  5  :292. 

M  Doc.  cit.,  supra,  note  17;  JBT,  July  16,  1715. 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


167 


board  to  prevent  this  practice.  Rum  debts  had  been  declared 
void,  and  traders  forbidden  to  hold  the  Indians  of  a  town  col¬ 
lectively  responsible  for  a  private  debt.  No  debt  was  valid,  the 
board  finally  ruled,  unless  formally  consented  to  by  the  debtor’s 
kin  or  the  headmen  of  the  tribe.21  But  great  debts  nevertheless 
accumulated.  In  1711  it  was  asserted  that  they  amounted  to 
100,000  skins,  or  more  than  a  year’s  produce  of  the  whole 
Carolina  trade.22  ‘This  war,’  Bull  remarked,  ‘at  once  blotts  out 
all  their  Debts.’23 

Much  was  made  at  the  time  of  alleged  Spanish  and  French 
complicity.  Naturally  the  colonists  saw  a  connection  between 
the  collapse  of  their  western  enterprise  and  the  calamity  which 
spread  massacre  and  destruction  from  the  plantations  on  the 
Stono  and  the  Santee  to  the  trading  factories  among  the  dis¬ 
tant  Chickasaw.  Before  the  Board  of  Trade  in  July,  1715,  the 
charge  was  squarely  made  by  the  Carolina  agent  and  several 
planters  that  ‘the  Spaniards  at  St.  Augustin,  and  the  French  at 
Mobile,  have  instigated  and  incouraged  the  Indians  to  fall  upon 
us.’24  And  the  next  year  affidavits  were  sent  home  in  which 
Carolinians  who  had  visited  Florida  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
insurrection  deposed  that  the  Spaniards  bought  slaves  and 
plunder  from  the  Yamasee,  and  that  the  latter  ‘had  a  constant 
Supply  of  Ammunition  from  the  Spanish  Government.’25  These 
and  similar  charges  against  the  French  contained  no  proof, 
however,  that  the  revolt  was  actually  instigated  by  Carolina’s 
southern  and  western  rivals. 

The  war  came  with  terrible  suddenness  to  the  dispersed  fron¬ 
tier  settlers  of  St.  Helena’s  and  St.  Bartholomew’s  parishes,  and 
to  the  widely-scattered  Indian  traders.  At  Charles  Town  there 
was  a  brief  warning.  On  April  12,  1715,  two  traders  hurried 
into  town  with  grave  news  for  the  Indian  board  and  the  gov- 

aJIC,  June  13,  August  3,  1711;  July  9,  1712.  See  also  JCHA,  October 
12,  1710. 

32  Ibid.,  June  13,  1711. 

23  Doc.  cit.,  supra,  note  17.  Bull  added  that  another  reason  for  the  war 
commonly  asserted  was  that  the  Indians  were  ‘especially  addicted  to  war 
and  bloodshed.’  But  South  Carolina  had  brought  the  intertribal  wars  to  an 
end ;  united,  the  Indians  thought  themselves  ‘a  sufficient  Match  for  us.’  Had 
this  design  of  peace  among  the  Indians  been  promoted  by  the  province  for 
God’s  glory,  rather  than  for  ‘trade  and  commerce,’  he  thought  it  would 
have  prospered  better. 

21  JBT,  July  16,  1715. 

25  C.O.  5  : 1265,  Q  97. 


168 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


ernor.  They  had  ridden  night  and  day,  William  Bray  from  the 
Yamasees,  Samuel  Warner  from  Palachacola.  Both  asserted 
that  the  plot  was  hatched  by  the  Creeks.  While  Bray  was  hunt¬ 
ing  for  runaway  slaves  near  St.  Augustine,  ‘a  Yamasee  Indian 
came  to  his  Wife  and  told  her  he  had  a  great  matter  to  tell  her 
which  was  that  the  Creek  Indians  had  a  design  to  Cut  off  the 
Traders  first  and  then  to  fall  on  the  settlements  and  that  it 
was  very  neare.’  Warner,  too,  had  heard  from  the  Palachacola 
that  the  Creeks  were  dissatisfied  with  their  traders,  especially 
John  Jones,  against  whom  they  had  made  several  complaints 
without  redress,  and  ‘that  upon  the  first  afront  from  any  of  the 
Traders  they  would  down  with  them  and  so  go  on  with  itt.’  The 
final  entry  in  the  old  ‘Indian  Book’  of  the  board  was  a  direction 
to  Warner  to  proceed  immediately  to  the  Yamasee  and  Pala¬ 
chacola  towns,  to  summon  the  Indians  to  conference  at  Savan¬ 
nah  Town  where  Craven  promised  to  hear  and  redress  their 
grievances.26 

But  the  hour  of  which  Cuffy,  the  Yoa  Indian,  had  brought 
friendly  warning  was  too  near.  Craven,  hastening  to  the  parley, 
was  met  with  sickening  news  of  massacre  near  Port  Royal. 
‘This  calamity  of  Warr  was  first  fomented  by  some  of  the 
lower  Creeke  people,’  declared  a  well-informed  Carolinian,  ‘but 
the  first  stroke  was  given  by  the  Yamasees.’27  On  Good  Friday, 
April  15,  the  blow  fell  at  Pocotaligo  Town.  There  Bray  and 
Warner  had  joined  Captain  Thomas  Nairne,  the  Indian  agent, 
and  several  traders.  The  Yamasee  headmen  had  seemed  pleased 
with  their  assurances  of  redress,  and  on  the  night  of  April  14 
the  Carolinians  had  retired  without  thought  of  imminent  dan¬ 
ger.  But  at  break  of  day  they  were  awakened  by  the  war-whoop, 
to  meet  the  attack  of  Indians  horrible  as  ‘demons  risen  from 
Hell’  in  their  red  and  black  war-paint.  Some  were  slain  outright. 
For  others — among  these  Thomas  Nairne,  veteran  of  the  war¬ 
path  and  the  council  house,  the  ablest  frontiersman  of  his  day 
in  the  South — fiendish  torments  were  prepared.  Nairne,  it  was 

MJIC,  April  12,  1715.  The  friendly  Yamasee  who  gave  warning  was 
identified  as  Cuffy,  a  Yoa,  in  JCHA,  August  10,  1715.  Compare  the  tradition 
of  Sanute  and  the  Frasers  in  Hewat,  History,  I.  215-6,  reprinted  in  Carroll 
(ed.),  Collections,  I.  192-4.  See  also  Craven  to  Townshend,  May  23,  1715,  in 
Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  177. 

27  Year  Book  of  the  City  of  Charleston,  1894,  p.  337  (‘Journal  of  the 
M3"~h  of  the  Carolinians’). 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


169 


reported,  was  burned  at  the  stake  ‘a  petit  feu,’  a  refinement  of 
torture  which  was  protracted  several  days.28 

From  this  scene  of  terror  at  Pocotaligo  only  two  or  three 
whites  escaped.  One  of  these  was  a  seaman  who,  though 
wounded,  succeeded  in  swimming  the  river,  to  carry  the  alarm 
to  Barnwell’s  plantation.  A  ship,  seized  for  smuggling,  lay  in 
the  harbor,  and  was  soon  crowded  with  three  hundred  or  more 
terror-stricken  Port  Royal  planters  and  their  families.  Hardly 
had  they  found  this  asylum  when  the  Indians  appeared.  Their 
shots  fell  short  of  the  ship,  but  ashore  they  destroyed  horses 
and  cattle,  sacked  the  deserted  plantations,  and  murdered  those 
few  unfortunates  who  fell  into  their  hands. 

Northward  the  savages  took  heavier  toll,  as  a  second  party 
swept  through  the  widely  scattered  plantations  in  St.  Barthol¬ 
omew’s  parish,  between  the  Combahee  and  the  Edisto.  Here 
about  one  hundred  settlers  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Indians, 
and  many  others,  including  the  Rev.  Mr.  Osborn,  had  narrow 
escapes.  Here,  too,  ‘most  of  the  Houses  and  Heavy  Goods  in 
the  Parish  were  burned  or  spoil’d.’  As  the  news  spread  to  St. 
Paul’s,  now  the  frontier,  and  to  Goose  Creek,  plantations  were 
deserted  for  a  few  improvised  garrisons,  and  women  and  child¬ 
ren,  with  cart-loads  of  goods,  scurried  into  Charles  Town  for 
shelter. 

At  a  stroke  the  Yamasee  had  massacred  the  traders  and 
destroyed  the  border  settlements.  Meanwhile,  among  the  towns 
of  their  southern  allies,  Cowetas,  Talapoosas,  Abihkas,  Ala- 
bamas,  and  Choctaws,  the  traders  everywhere  were  ‘knocked 
on  the  head’  or  forced  to  flee  when  their  trading-houses  were 
broken  open  and  despoiled.  A  few  were  rescued  by  the  French 
and  Spanish,  others  were  protected  by  friendly  Indians  until 
the  storm  had  passed.  In  this  revolt  against  the  traders  the 
Lower  Creeks  gave  the  lead :  the  old  Emperor  Brims,  of  Coweta, 
was  charged  by  the  French  as  well  as  the  English  with  direct¬ 
ing  the  plot.  Creeks  from  Coweta  Town  even  stole  into  the 
Chickasaw  country  and  murdered  several  of  the  western  traders. 

23  George  Rodd,  ‘Relation’  (in  French),  in  C.O.  5  :387,  no.  1;  W.  T.  Bull 
to  S.P.G.,  August  10,  1715,  and  William  Guy  to  same,  September  20,  1715, 
in  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  part  1,  23,  25;  Boston  News  Letter,  June  13,  1715; 
Humphreys,  Historical  Account,  1730,  pp.  92-8.  These  references  apply  also 
to  the  two  following  paragraphs. 


170 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


The  Chickasaw,  however,  guarded  the  survivors,  and  in  1716 
sent  down  word  that  ‘they  knew  nothing  of  the  Warr  tell  it 
was  all  done ;  and  that  their  desire  is  still  to  continue  in  friend¬ 
ship  with  the  English.’  But  the  Choctaw  killed  their  new 
friends,  the  Charles  Town  traders,  and  were  soon  smoking  the 
calumet  again  at  Mobile.  Rumors  of  these  events  in  the  distant 
Indian  country  added  to  the  general  alarm  in  the  province.  It 
appeared  at  first  that  all  the  southern  Indians  as  far  as  the 
Mississippi  were  leagued  together  to  drive  the  English  into 
the  sea.  Most  disquieting  was  the  report,  based  on  a  few  mur¬ 
ders  of  traders  and  the  flight  of  others  to  Charles  Town,  that 
the  Cherokee  had  joined  the  conspiracy.  It  was  certain,  more¬ 
over,  that  the  Yuchi,  Apalache,  and  the  remnant  of  the 
Shawnee  at  the  Savannah  fall-line  had  taken  the  war-path. 
Northward  the  Catawba  and  the  lesser  tribes  of  the  coastal 
plain  and  the  piedmont — Saraws,  Waccamaws,  Santee,  and 
Cape  Fears — were  also  hostile.  Early  in  May  news  that  the 
northern  Indians  had  slain  the  traders  threw  the  French  Prot¬ 
estants  of  St.  James  Santee  into  panic.  They  took  refuge  in 
garrisons,  one  of  which  was  the  house  of  their  pastor,  Riche- 
bourg.  Around  Charles  Town  was  drawn  a  menacing  circle 
of  fire  and  destruction.29 

That  South  Carolina  escaped  complete  ruin  was  due  to  the 
energy  of  a  gallant  governor,  to  the  skill  of  the  seasoned  Indian 
fighters  who  commanded  her  militia,  to  assistance  in  arms  and 
men  from  neighboring  provinces,  and  to  the  conversion  of  the 
Cherokee  at  a  critical  moment  to  peace  and  friendly  assistance. 

Met  by  news  of  the  massacres,  Craven,  without  returning 
to  Charles  Town,  summoned  the  militia  of  Colleton  county. 
Alarm  cannons  were  fired,  martial  law  proclaimed.  An  attack 
on  the  camp  was  defeated  and  an  advance  hastily  improvised. 
Colonel  Barnwell  and  Captain  Mackay  were  despatched  by 
water  to  attack  Pocotaligo  with  the  southern  scouts.  The  week 
after  Easter,  Craven  marched  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  mi¬ 
litiamen  and  settlement  Indians  directly  towards  the  ‘Indian 
Land.’  Near  the  head  of  Combahee  River  he  discovered  the 

29  Doc.  cit.,  supra,  note  27,  pp.  332-6;  Spotswood,  Letters,  II.  122; 
S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  part  1,  23,  48;  Penicaut  in  Margry  (ed.).  Decouvertes, 
V.  509  f. ;  anonymous  French  account,  MS,  Ayer  collection,  Newberry  Li¬ 
brary,  quoted  in  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  225  f. 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


171 


Yamasee  in  front  of  him  in  a  wood.  They  attacked  in  a  crescent 
line  and  nearly  surrounded  his  camp,  but  he  rallied  his  deserters 
and  drove  them  into  swamps,  where  pursuit  was  hopeless. 
Sadkeche  Fight  checked  the  Yamasee  incursions  for  the 
moment,  but  Craven  had  not  made  the  expected  junction  with 
the  scouts.  Mackay,  however,  captured  Pocotaligo  Town  ‘with 
vast  quantities  of  provisions  that  they  had  stored  up,  and  what 
plunder  they  had  taken  from  the  English.’  At  another  town,  ‘a 
young  Stripling,  Palmer,’  first  distinguished  himself  by  driving 
the  Indians  from  their  fort  while  Mackay  cut  down  the  fugi¬ 
tives.  Mackay  and  his  swamp-hunters  now  pressed  the  cam¬ 
paign  so  vigorously  in  the  ‘Indian  Land’  that  the  Charles  Town 
merchants  were  soon  shipping  captive  Yamasee  to  the  markets 
of  Jamaica  and  New  England,  as  the  Ten  Towns  withdrew  to 
Guale  and  Florida.30 

When  the  assembly  convened  in  May,  refugees  were  pour¬ 
ing  into  Charles  Town  from  all  sides.  In  the  streets  were  heard 
‘the  cries  and  lamentations  of  women  and  children.’  Men  talked 
of  a  continental  conspiracy  of  the  Indians,  abetted  by  the 
Spanish  and  French,  to  kill  all  the  English  in  America  or  drive 
them  into  the  sea.  The  timid  were  already  fleeing  the  province 
when  Craven  sternly  prohibited  emigration.  ‘Expedition,’ 
the  governor  warned  the  assembly,  ‘is  the  life  of  action.’ 
Craven,  too  sanguine,  pledged  the  Proprietors’  aid  as  well  as 
his  own.  May  7  the  Commons  House  resolved  ‘that  a  Treaty 
with  the  Cherokee  Indians  be  set  on  foot  immediately.’  This, 
the  first  decision  of  the  Commons,  had  to  be  postponed,  but  it 
revealed  a  clear  perception  of  the  fundamental  strategy  of  the 
war.  Agents  were  despatched  to  New  England  to  purchase 
arms  and  to  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  to  appeal  for  troops. 
Three  defense  acts  were  passed.  The  emergency  measures  of 
the  governor  were  confirmed,  and  the  governor  and  council 
impowered  to  impress  vessels  and  stores.  Negroes  were  drafted 
into  the  army.  A  ring  of  plantation  garrisons  was  established 
along  the  fighting  frontier,  nowhere  more  than  thirty  miles 
from  Charles  Town.  These  included  stockades  upon  the  Edisto 
River  at  Edisto  Bluff  and  Jackson’s  Bridge  (Pon  Pon),  to 

20  George  Rodd,  ‘Relation,’  loc.  cit.,  supra,  note  28 ;  Boston  News  Letter, 
June  13,  1715.  Humphreys,  Historical  Account,  p.  99. 


172 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


command  the  two  principal  land  approaches  from  the  south. 
A  garrison  was  also  established  at  New  London,  and  at  St. 
Helena  a  dozen  men  were  placed  in  a  little  fortification  ‘to 
watch  the  motions  of  the  Indians  by  water.’  In  Berkeley  county, 
nearer  Charles  Town,  other  garrisons  were  posted  at  the  Per- 
cival  plantation  called  the  Ponds  near  the  head  of  Ashley  River, 
at  Walter  Izard’s  Wassamaw  plantation,  and  at  Wantoot,  the 
Ravenel  place  in  St.  John’s  parish,  near  the  head  of  Cooper 
River.  Schenkingh’s  Cowpen  on  the  Santee  was  the  northern¬ 
most  outpost.  With  the  passage  of  these  acts,  and  the  despatch 
of  urgent  addresses  for  assistance  to  the  King,  Proprietors, 
and  the  Admiralty,  the  assembly  stood  prorogued  until 
August.31 

Early  in  June  the  Santee  frontier  was  attacked  by  the 
northern  conspirators.  Mr.  John  Herne,  a  planter,  was  mur¬ 
dered,  and  a  party  of  ninety  mounted  men,  marching  north¬ 
ward  to  compel  the  allegiance  of  the  Congarees,  fell  into  an 
ambuscade  in  the  woods.  Captain  Barker,  ‘a  Brave  young 
gentleman,’  and  nearly  a  third  of  his  men  were  lost.  The  Santee 
settlements  were  now  abandoned;  rich  Goose  Creek  was  ex¬ 
posed.  A  new  stream  of  refugees  from  the  north  poured  into 
Charles  Town.  The  danger  in  this  quarter  was  increased  by 
the  disaster  at  Schenkingh’s  Cowpen,  when  the  commander, 
one  Redwood,  foolishly  admitted  a  party  of  Indians  proposing 
peace,  who  then  put  the  defenders  to  the  tomahawk.  A  gang 
of  Cherokee,  it  was  reported,  had  a  part  in  this  affair.  Captain 
George  Chicken,  a  ‘brave  and  bold’  officer,  marched  northwards 
from  the  Ponds  with  one  hundred  and  twenty  of  the  Goose 
Creek  militia.  In  a  pitched  battle,  June  13,  he  roundly  punished 
the  raiders,  released  several  prisoners  and  recaptured  some  of 
the  arms  seized  at  Schenkingh’s.32  By  this  prompt  stroke  the 
prestige  of  the  militia  was  restored  after  a  series  of  humilia- 

31  George  Rodd,  ‘Relation,’  in  C.O.  5 :387,  no.  1;  JCHA,  May  6-12, 
1715;  Journals  of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  August  8,  1715;  Spotswood,  Let¬ 
ters,  II.  121.  Several  garrisons  may  be  located  on  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  Gen¬ 
eral,  7. 

33  Doc.  cit.,  supra,  note  17;  Samuel  Eveleigh  to  Boone  and  Berresford, 
July  19,  August  24,  1715;  Commons  House  commissioners  to  same,  August 
25,  1715  (C.O.  5:1265,  Q  66)  ;  Boston  News  Letter,  July  11,  1715;  Hum¬ 
phreys,  Historical  Account,  pp.  99  f. ;  Rivers,  Sketch,  p.  265;  C.O.  Maps, 
N.A.C.  General,  7. 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


173 


tions.  But  it  was  not  yet  certain  that  the  northern  Indians  were 
finally  repulsed.  And  meanwhile,  what  of  the  Cherokee? 

Southward  all  had  been  quiet  since  early  June.  In  mid- 
July  Craven  felt  secure  enough  to  undertake  a  northern  expe¬ 
dition,  to  join  the  North  Carolina  forces  under  Maurice  Moore 
and  Theophilus  Hastings  in  the  subjugation  of  the  Saraws 
and  the  other  piedmont  hostiles.  He  had  crossed  the  Santee 
with  about  a  hundred  whites  drawn  from  the  garrison,  and 
another  hundred  negroes  and  Indians,  when  expresses  from 
the  south  brought  news  of  a  fresh  incursion  threatening 
Charles  Town.  From  five  hundred  to  seven  hundred  Apalaches 
and  their  allies  had  swiftly  penetrated  the  line  of  forts  and 
crossed  the  Pon  Pon  bridge  over  Edisto  River  undiscovered. 
Their  attack  on  New  London  beaten  off  by  the  garrison,  the 
raiders  spread  out  eastward  and  northward  along  Stono  River 
to  within  a  dozen  miles  of  Charles  Town.  About  twenty  plan¬ 
tations  were  destroyed  in  St.  Paul’s  parish,  including  Lady 
Blake’s  and  Joseph  Boone’s,  where  a  ship  was  burned  on  the 
stocks.  Of  the  houses  in  their  path  only  Landgrave  Morton’s 
escaped  destruction.  But  they  were  checked  in  their  effort  to 
cross  over  to  Stono  Island,  and  fled,  burning  Pon  Pon  bridge 
in  their  retreat.  At  Port  Royal  Captain  Stone  cut  off  several 
canoes,  but  most  of  the  raiders  escaped  to  the  woods.  The  great 
damage  done  in  this  foray  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  garrisons 
were  undermanned,  and  only  by  deserting  them  could  the  plan¬ 
tations  be  protected.  It  was  believed  at  Charles  Town  that  the 
marauders  had  withdrawn  to  Savannah  Town  to  watch  for 
another  chance  to  renew  their  incursions.33 

Before  the  assembly  reconvened,  August  2,  in  one  respect 
the  situation  had  improved.  The  aid  anxiously  awaited  from 
the  north  had  begun  to  arrive.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  attacks 
Craven  had  immediately  appealed  to  Spotswood  for  arms,  and 
the  assembly,  a  little  later,  had  sent  Benjamin  de  la  Conseilliere 
to  Boston  with  deerskins,  to  purchase  ‘buccaneer’  guns.  By  the 
middle  of  July  H.  M.  S.  Valour ,  guard  ship  on  the  Virginia 
station,  had  brought  160  muskets  and  powder  and  shot  sorely 

33  Letters  cited  in  note  32;  Boston  News  Letter,  August  IS,  1715.  Bull 
and  the  commissioners  said  that  the  raiders  were  stopped  by  South  Caro¬ 
lina  forces ;  see  Spotswood’s  claim  that  Virginia  troops  saved  Charles 
Town  ( Letters ,  II.  240). 


needed  for  the  garrisons,  anc 
had  arrived.  The  New  Eng 
until  more  than  a  month  lat 
couragement  from  Governor 
of  Virginia  gave  great  sati 
frontier  interests,  saw  the  s< 
also,  no  doubt,  an  opportunil 
Fearing  that  the  Iroquois  and 
the  great  conjuration,  he  sent 
vania  and  New  York,  warning 
ful  eye  on  the  Indians  and  si 
Board  of  Trade  and  the  Trea 
Virginia,  and  asked  leave  tc 
and  equip  troops  to  defend  th 
The  French,  he  warned  St 
Royal  or  Charles  Town.  ‘But 
or  Spaniard  is  not  any  ways 
would  it  be  of  the  most  dre 
human  Enemies  should  prove 
be  sufficient  to  conquer  and  e 
Triumph  over  that  very  Pr 
famous  for  keeping  the  Ind 
stroy  the  legend  of  English 
against  the  Indians,  and  inv 
America  to  over-run  the  En: 
he  justified  his  aid  to  South 
felt  that  intercolonial  coopei 
cation.36 

Spotswood  and  his  counc 
Arthur  Middleton,  the  Soutl 
agreed  to  despatch  a  force  o 
22s  6 d,  Virginia  money,  anc 
the  somewhat  extraordinary 
slave  woman  be  sent  from  So 
place  of  each  soldier  for  the 

34  Letter  of  August  25,  1715,  ci 

35C.O.  5:1265,  Q  66  (1). 

39  Spotswood,  Letters,  II.  122f. 

37  Ibid.,  pp.  135  f.,  206,  228.  Spoi 
as  generous,  Journals  of  the  Hou 
Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  253. 


hundred  and  eighteen  volunteers, 
s  and  a  band  of  tributary  Indians 
vans,  commander  of  the  Virginia 
aused  by  opposition  in  the  North 
Theophilus  Hastings  and  Colonel 
fighters  of  South  Carolina,  with 
each,  marched  down  the  coast  to 
;ndezvous  at  St.  Julien’s  plantation 
them  were  sixty  North  Carolina 
ees.38 

rs  in  the  South  Carolina  assembly 

of  Middleton’s  agreement  as  im- 

In  vain  Craven  urged  observance  ; 

ie  further  aid  promised  by  Spots- 

r  army  bill  of  August,  1715,  pro- 

00  Virginians  at  the  same  wages 

:.,  £4  per  month),  providing  the 

w  terms  were  refused,  the  slaves 

ne  before  April  1,  1716. 39  Nego- 

'ginia  officers,  two  commissioners 

to  propose  an  equivalent  of  50.? 

each  slave.  But  the  Virginians  re- 

February,  1716,  Craven  renewed 

of  South  Carolina,  twice  pledged, 

mbly.  With  mutual  recriminations 

(ed  for  several  years.  The  Caro- 

lian  troops  as  ‘the  most  ignorant 

ever  was  seen,’  while  Spotswood 

e  Board  of  Trade,  to  Secretary 

governors  of  their  ill-usage.  Vir- 

:d  as  unique  in  American  annals. 

iscourage  intercolonial  aid  in  the 

eventually  forced  to  accept  such 

Carolina  troops  had  received.40 

on  News  Letter,  September  5,  1715.  C.O. 
tion,  III.  17,  18,  shows  route. 

1715. 

:r  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  626  (title  only)  ; 
9,  121,  126-9,  131,  136,  141,  144,  164,  207, 
203,  225,  227,  234,  252-4;  JBT,  June  28, 
>-gesses,  May  8,  1718;  H.  L.  Osgood,  Am. 
348  f. 


176 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Probably  the  Virginian  terms  were  too  harsh.  Certainly 
Spotswood’s  hauteur  as  a  royal  governor  dealing  with  a  pro¬ 
prietary  province  created  ill-feeling,  which  was  raised  to  bitter¬ 
ness  by  his  Indian  policy.  Charges  made  during  the  Tuscarora 
War  that  Virginia  traded  with  the  hostiles  were  revived.  Again 
were  demonstrated  the  evils  of  decentralized  control  of  the 
Indian  trade  and  Indian  diplomacy. 

It  is  clear  that  Spotswood  at  the  beginning  of  the  Indian 
war  saw  a  chance  to  restore  the  waning  prestige  of  Virginia 
among  the  southern  tribes.  To  the  Burgesses  he  declared, 
August  4,  that  ‘never  had  Virginia  so  fair  an  Opportunity  as 
now,  to  acquire  Glory,  and  appear  to  the  Heathen  the  most 
formidable  Dominion  in  America.’41  His  first  vision  of  a 
triumphant  intervention  of  Virginian  arms  was  frustrated  by 
quarrels  with  the  Carolinians  and  with  his  own  assembly. 
Meanwhile  he  had  embarked  upon  a  policy  of  negotiation  with 
the  piedmont  tribes.  After  Chicken  had  successfully  punished 
the  northern  raiders  in  July,  1715,  Spotswood  transmitted  to 
Charles  Town  with  his  endorsement  the  overtures  of  the  Sa- 
raws  for  peace.  The  Carolinians,  resenting  his  interference, 
were  quick  to  discover  ulterior  motives.  They  insisted  that  the 
Indians  in  question  must  submit  to  South  Carolina  and  make 
reparation,  and  protested  against  any  treaty  by  Virginia  which 
would  recognize  their  neutrality.  Through  the  neutrals,  it  was 
predicted,  arms  and  ammunition  would  find  their  way  to  the 
enemy  Indians.  And  then,  as  one  indignant  Carolinian  asserted, 
‘the  Sweat  and  Blood  of  our  People  will  centre  in  the  coffers 
of  the  Indian  trading  company  of  Virginia.’42  The  King  was 
petitioned  to  order  assistance  of  men  and  arms  from  all  the 
royal  colonies,  especially  Virginia,  to  forbid  sale  of  warlike 
supplies  to  the  Indians,  and  to  require  instead  an  immediate 
declaration  of  war  against  Carolina’s  enemies.43  Spotswood, 
however,  clung  to  his  policy  of  neutrality,  and  pressed  his  nego¬ 
tiations  with  the  piedmont  tribes,  Saraws  and  Catawbas.  But 
he  strenuously  denied  that  one  pound  of  powder  or  shot  was 
sold  to  them  on  the  three  occasions  when  they  visited  Vir- 

a  Journals  of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  August  4.  1715. 

“Ibid.  Letter  of  August  25,  1715,  cited  in  note  32;  extract  from  a  letter 
from  South  Carolina,  dated  August  30,  1715,  in  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  96. 

43  C.O.  5 :382,  f.  16. 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


177 


ginia.44  On  the  other  hand  the  Carolina  agents  transmitted  to 
the  Board  of  Trade  letters  from  America,  asserting,  to  be  sure 
on  Indian  evidence,  that  the  Saraws  had  a  constant  supply  of 
munitions  from  Virginia,  which  were  distributed  through  inter¬ 
tribal  trade  to  others  of  the  enemy.45  In  1716  Spotswood  re¬ 
fused  to  join  in  attacks  upon  the  Saraws,  though  solicited 
from  North  Carolina  as  well  as  Virginia.46  In  an  angry  me¬ 
morial  to  the  Board  in  December,  1716, 47  Boone  and  Berres- 
ford  roundly  charged  the  Virginians  with  encouraging  the  war 
on  South  Carolina.  Else  why  were  the  Virginians  buying  In¬ 
dian  trading-guns,  which  they  never  before  had  required?  The 
custom  house  books,  they  declared,  showed  large  quantities 
of  deerskins  recently  imported  from  Virginia  ‘which  must  be 
bought  of  Indians  that  are  at  Warr  with  Carolina,  their  trade 
with  their  Neighbour  Indians  never  having  produced  such 
Quantities,  and  can  be  no  other  than  the  Stores  the  Indians 
plundered  from  the  Carolina  traders  and  sold  to  them.’  The 
special  object  of  their  attack  was  Spotswood’s  Indian  trading 
company  of  1716.  Through  this  enterprise  the  ambitious  royal 
governor  was  suspected  of  seeking  to  wrest  from  Carolina,  in 
her  extremity,  the  remnants  of  her  great  southern  Indian  trade. 
Moreover,  Spotswood’s  exploring  efforts  in  1716  to  open  a 
route  through  the  Blue  Ridge  were  thought  to  be  aimed  specific¬ 
ally  at  the  acquisition  of  the  Cherokee  trade.48  Against  this 
background  the  failure  of  cooperation  by  the  two  provinces  was 
inevitable.  The  Board  of  Trade  had  it  in  mind  when  in  1720 
the  first  royal  governor  of  South  Carolina  was  directed  to 
consult  with  the  governor  of  Virginia  and  agree  upon  a  com¬ 
mon  Indian  policy.49  The  experience  of  trade  rivalry  in  the 
midst  of  the  Yamasee  War  thus  dictated  the  first  effort  to  place 
Indian  affairs  in  the  South  upon  something  like  an  imperial 
footing.  Already  the  war  had  produced  an  interesting  effort  to 
correlate  Indian  policy  on  the  northern  and  southern  frontiers. 
Long  since  Virginia  had  made  peace  with  the  Five  Nations, 
and  had  joined  in  the  councils  with  the  Iroquois  at  Albany. 

44  Spotswood,  Letters,  II.  127,  131,  147,  209. 

45  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  95,  96. 

4fl  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  242,  243,  246,  247. 

47  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  94. 

48  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  125. 

48  See  below,  pp.  231,  233. 


178 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Now  Governor  Hunter,  at  the  request  of  South  Carolina, 
sought  to  engage  the  warlike  Senecas  against  the  revolting 
southern  tribes.  The  chief  result,  apparently,  was  to  support 
Carolinian  morale  at  a  period  of  intense  discouragement.50 

In  August,  1715,  the  South  Carolina  assembly  admitted 
that  ‘our  former  measures  for  managing  the  war  have  not 
answered  the  end,’  and  undertook  to  put  the  defenses  of  the 
province  upon  a  better  footing.  The  new  army  act  provided  for 
twelve  hundred  men  to  serve  under  pay :  six  hundred  Carolina 
whites,  one  hundred  Virginians,  the  rest  slaves  and  free  In¬ 
dians.  But  no  offensive  was  planned  until  the  crops  were  har¬ 
vested.  Instead,  the  troops  were  posted  in  three  regiments  to 
defend  the  country  northward,  westward,  and  southward.  The 
former  garrisons  had  been  too  widely  spaced;  ten  posts  were 
now  fixed  within  supporting  distances.  James  Moore,  the 
younger,  commanded  as  lieutenant-general.51 

So  effective  were  these  measures  that  during  the  later  sum¬ 
mer  the  war  degenerated  into  a  species  of  bush  fighting.  The 
Indians,  a  Bristol  sea-captain  wrote,  ‘endeavour  to  Cut  us  off 
piece  meal  and  won’t  come  to  a  generall  Engagement  being 
very  Sensible  the  Warr  enricheth  themselves  and  impoverisheth 
us.  They  are  all  Freebooters  and  carry  all  their  Estates  about 
with  them,  and  are  never  from  home  or  out  of  their  way;  a 
little  parcht  Corn  and  puddle  water  is  good  Victuals  for  them 
and  fattens  them  like  hogs.’52  These  tactics  were  demoralizing 
to  planters,  but  bumper  crops  were  gathered  and  meanwhile  a 
couple  of  skirmishes  southward  augured  success  for  the  fall  and 
winter  offensives  that  were  planned  to  end  the  war.53 

From  a  captive  taken  in  one  of  these  small  affrays,  ‘the 
Dawfusky  fight,’  it  was  learned  that  part  of  the  Yamasee  had 
returned  to  Guale,  which  they  had  deserted  thirty  years  before 
for  the  ‘Indian  Land.’  In  the  fall  the  lieutenant-governor,  Rob¬ 
ert  Daniel,  led  a  considerable  expedition  against  Huspaw  town, 

50  Boston  News  Letter,  September  19,  1715;  JCHA,  May  7,  1715,  Febru¬ 
ary  29,  1715/16;  cf.  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV.  25. 

51  JCHA,  August,  1715,  passim.  The  act  is  lost  but  can  be  partly  recon¬ 
structed  from  the  journals.  See  commissioners  to  agents,  August  25,  1715, 
C.O.  5:1265,  Q  66. 

52  John  Tate  to  Sir  John  Duddleston,  September  16,  1715,  in  C.O.  5:1265, 
Q  60. 

"3  Ibid.,  Q  66  (Eveleigh  to  Boone,  October  7,  1715)  ;  S.P.G.  MSS,  B, 
IV.  29;  Boston  News  Letter,  September  26,  1715. 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


179 


on  the  mainland  near  the  northern  mouth  of  the  Altamaha. 
But  the  Indians  had  warning  and  deserted  the  settlement.  Their 
flight  to  Apalache  and  St.  Augustine  marked  the  final  abandon¬ 
ment  of  Guale  by  its  ancient  inhabitants.  Close  to  their  sum¬ 
mer’s  refuge  John  Barnwell  in  1721  built  Fort  King  George, 
the  historic  link  between  the  old  Guale  and  future  Georgia.54 

Meanwhile,  what  of  those  great  inland  tribes,  the  Creeks 
and  the  Cherokee?  How  long  would  the  Creeks,  authors  of  the 
conspiracy,  rest  content  with  the  assassination  of  the  traders? 
Which  way  would  the  mountaineers  throw  their  weight  in  the 
war?  If  against  Carolina,  then  the  ruin  of  the  colony  still 
seemed  inescapable. 

Gradually  hopes  of  Cherokee  neutrality,  then  of  aid  against 
the  Muskogee,  were  aroused.  In  August  the  province  accepted 
proposals  from  two  escaped  Indian  traders,  Eleazer  Wigan  and 
Robert  Gilcrest,  to  undertake  a  dangerous  journey  to  the  Chero¬ 
kee  towns.  They  were  outfitted  at  public  charge,  and  promised 
£500  apiece  if  they  persuaded  the  Cherokee  to  give  aid.  Late  in 
October  the  province  was  immensely  cheered  by  their  return 
with  a  great  Cherokee  delegation :  eight  head-men,  including 
Caesar  of  Echota,  a  frontier  town  against  the  Creeks  on  the 
Chattahoochee,  a  dozen  head-warriors,  and  a  hundred  attend¬ 
ants.  With  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  peacepipe  and  the  solemn 
exchange  of  garments  they  made  peace  for  their  nation  with 
the  governor  and  council,  and  promised  to  send  their  best  war¬ 
riors  to  Savannah  Town  to  march  with  the  English  against 
the  Creeks.  Heartened  by  this  event,  the  planters  returned  in 
greater  numbers  to  the  devastated  parishes.  ‘Had  it  not  been  for 
this  singular  Providence,’  wrote  one  of  their  clergy,  ‘we  could 

“References  as  in  note  53,  and  also  Gideon  Johnston  to  secretary  of  the 
S.P.G.,  December  19,  1715,  in  S.P.G.  MSS,  IV,  part  I,  37.  The  clergyman 
deplored  the  militaristic  spirit  of  the  province.  ‘It  is  certain,’  he  declared, 
‘Many  of  the  Yammonses  and  Creek  Indians  were  against  the  war  all 
along;  But  our  Military  Men  are  so  bent  upon  Revenge,  and  so  desirous  to 
enrich  themselves,  by  making  all  the  Indians  Slaves  that  fall  into  their 
hands,  but  such  as  they  kill,  (without  making  the  least  distinction  between 
the  guilty  and  the  innocent,  and  without  considering  the  Barbarous  usage 
these  poor  Savages  met  with  from  our  vilainous  Traders)  that  it  is  in  vain 
to  represent  to  them  the  Cruelty  and  injustice  of  Such  a  procedure.  And 
therefore  all  that  we  can  doe  is,  to  lament  in  Secret  those  Sins,  which  have 
brought  this  Judgement  upon  us ;  for  what  we  Say  out  of  the  pulpit,  are 
words  of  course,  and  are  little  minded,  notwithstanding  the  general  calamity.’ 


180 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


not  have  taken  the  Resolution  of  returning  to  our  Settlements 
with  so  good  a  heart  as  we  have  done.’55 

At  the  end  of  November  the  army  was  assembled  at  the 
Ponds  for  the  Creek  campaign,  which  was  designed  to  end  the 
war  by  destroying  the  source  of  the  conspiracy.56  While  the 
Cherokee  and  a  few  whites  should  attack  the  Upper  Creeks, 
the  main  force  would  operate  against  the  Lower  Creeks  and 
their  Savannah  and  Apalache  allies.  From  the  Ponds,  they 
marched  to  Savannah  Town,  where  it  had  been  decided  to  settle 
a  strong  garrison,  later  Fort  Moore,  to  overlook  both  the 
northern  and  the  southern  border  at  the  focus  of  the  trading 
paths.  But  the  Cherokee  had  not  kept  the  rendezvous.  Once 
more  disturbing  doubts  were  raised  of  their  real  intentions. 

To  resolve  these  doubts  and  secure  their  aid  against  the 
Creeks  were  the  objects  of  the  most  spectacular  enterprise  of 
the  war :  the  march  of  Colonel  Maurice  Moore  with  three  hun¬ 
dred  men  into  the  heart  of  the  Cherokee  country.57  This  ex¬ 
ploit,  it  seems  clear,  turned  the  scale  of  Cherokee  policy  at  a 
most  critical  juncture,  when  Creek  emissaries  were  at  work 
to  persuade  the  mountaineers  to  break  once  more  with  the 
English.  So  vivid  a  tradition  of  the  crucial  character  of  the 
affair  was  cherished  in  South  Carolina  that  forty  years  later 
Governor  Glen,  in  praising  the  character  of  one  of  the  heroes 
of  the  march,  Captain  William  Bull,  later  lieutenant-governor, 
declared  that  ‘it  is  probably  owing  to  that  March,  that  we  have 
this  opportunity,  so  long  after,  of  commemorating  that  Era; 
for  had  the  Cherokee  and  Creeks  joined  at  that  time,  which 
nothing  prevented  but  the  resolute  Behaviour  of  our  Militia ; 
it  might  have  proved  fatal,  it  must  have  been,  at  least  very 
dangerous  to  the  Province.’58 

Under  Moore  served  a  number  of  practised  Indian  fighters, 

“JCHA,  August  6,  1715;  Eveleigh  to  agents,  August  24,  1715  (C.O. 
5:1265,  Q  66)  ;  assembly  to  agents,  March  15,  1715/16  (ibid..  Q  72)  ;  S.P.G. 
MSS,  B,  IV,  part  I,  31,  32.  G.  Johnston  wrote,  December  19,  1715,  that  he 
had  prevailed  upon  ‘the  Emperour  of  the  Cheriquois  to  let  me  have  his 
Eldest  Son’  to  be  brought  up  a  Christian  like  the  Yamasee  Prince. 

58  The  account  here  given  of  the  Cherokee  expedition  is  based  chiefly 
upon  the  anonymous  [Journal  of  the  March]  kept  by  one  of  the  officers, 
printed  in  the  Year  Book  of  the  City  of  Charleston,  1894,  pp.  342-52,  and 
attributed  by  the  editor,  Langdon  Cheves,  to  George  Chicken. 

67  C.O.  5  : 1265,  Q  72. 

68  South  Carolina  Gazette ,  April  3,  1755. 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


181 


including  Major  John  Herbert  and  Captain  George  Chicken, 
both  Indian  commissioners  after  the  war,  Captain  Nathaniel 
Broughton,  Captain  Thomas  Smith,  Captain  John  Cantey,  and 
Captain  John  Pight  with  his  negro  company.  But  their  mission 
called  for  skill  in  Indian  diplomacy,  rather  than  fighting,  though 
their  show  of  force  in  the  Lower  Towns  no  doubt  made  an 
impression.  From  Savannah  Town  they  followed  the  old 
traders’  path  on  the  left  bank  to  Toccoa  and  Tugaloo.  Their 
march  was  undisturbed,  but  later  they  learned  that  they  had 
been  shadowed  all  the  way  by  the  scouts  of  Brims  of  Coweta. 
In  the  council  at  the  round  house  of  Tugaloo  on  December  30, 
they  discovered  that  there  were  two  parties  among  the  Chero¬ 
kee.  The  Conjurer  and  Lower  Towns  were  for  peace,  declar¬ 
ing  they  would  never  fight  the  English,  but  they  were  loath  to 
attack  any  of  their  enemies  except  the  Savannah,  Yuchi,  and 
Apalache.  The  Yamasee,  the  Conjurer  asserted,  were  ‘his 
ancient  people.’  As  for  the  piedmont  tribes,  he  recalled  their 
parleys  with  Spotswood  and  sought  to  clear  the  Catawba  of 
blame.  The  Creeks  themselves,  he  declared,  had  accepted  a  flag 
of  truce  and  promised  to  come  up  to  negotiate  with  the  English 
when  they  should  appear.  The  Carolinians  therefore  agreed  that 
the  Creek  headmen  be  summoned  up  within  a  fortnight  to  treat 
for  peace,  and  to  bring  with  them  their  white  prisoners.  The 
problem  was  now  to  hold  in  check  the  war  party,  Caesar  of 
Echota  and  the  Overhill  Towns.  Moore  and  Herbert,  with 
twenty  men  as  a  guard,  met  the  headmen  of  the  Chattahoochee 
frontier  towns  and  of  most  of  the  Overhill  settlements  at 
Echota.  They  heard  Caesar  harangue  the  warriors  to  take  the 
war-path  as  he  had  promised  the  English  governor  they  would 
do.  But  the  old  men  restrained  the  ardor  of  their  youths,  and 
the  council  agreed  to  wait  two  days  beyond  the  appointed  time 
for  the  coming  of  the  Creeks  before  they  should  send  the  ‘red- 
stick’  through  the  nation.  At  Echota  the  English  received  let¬ 
ters  from  James  Alford — their  first  assurance  that  the  Chicka¬ 
saw  had  resisted  French  intrigue  and  still  held  to  the  Carolina 
alliance.  John  Chester,  trader,  was  sent  West  to  conduct  a 
party  of  their  chiefs  to  Charles  Town  to  renew  the  treaty. 
With  the  paths  to  the  Cherokee  and  the  Chickasaw  once  more 
open,  and  the  promise  of  a  peace  with  the  Creeks,  the  speedy 


182 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


rebuilding  of  the  shattered  South  Carolina  Indian  system  was 
now  in  prospect. 

So  far  as  these  hopes  were  built  upon  peace  with  the  Creeks 
they  were  doomed  to  disappointment.  Two  weeks,  three  weeks 
passed,  no  Creeks  appeared.  Had  they  gone  instead  to  Savannah 
Town  to  meet  the  governor?  This  might  well  be;  therefore 
Major  Herbert  with  another  officer  was  sent  to  Hiwasee  to 
persuade  the  bellicose  Overhill  towns  to  turn  their  arms  against 
the  northern  enemies  of  Carolina.  Angrily  the  Indians  charged 
the  governor  with  having  ‘two  talks.’  They  recalled  that  they 
had  ceased  their  old  wars  with  the  Creeks  only  at  English  inter¬ 
cession,  and  complained  that  without  these  wars  ‘they  should 
have  no  way  in  geting  of  Slaves  to  buy  amunition  and  Cloth¬ 
ing  and  that  they  were  resolved  to  get  ready  for  war.’  With 
difficulty  they  were  persuaded  to  await  further  word  from  the 
English  before  they  should  attack. 

For  the  denouement  the  English  were  quite  unprepared.  Late 
in  January  it  was  known  that  a  dozen  Creek  headmen  had  ar¬ 
rived.  Then,  at  Tugaloo,  headquarters  of  the  peace  party,  sud¬ 
denly  the  war-whoop  was  raised  and  the  Creek  emissaries  were 
put  to  the  knife.  Later  the  English  learned  the  secret  of  this 
extraordinary  affair.59  The  Creek  ‘talk,’  it  appeared,  had  been 
not  of  peace  with  South  Carolina,  but  of  a  joint  massacre  by 
Creeks  and  Cherokee  of  the  Carolinian  army  scattered  among 
the  Lower  Towns  for  convenience  in  victualling.  In  the  woods 
nearby  had  lurked  a  large  force  of  Creeks,  variously  estimated 
at  two  hundred  to  five  hundred  warriors,  ready  at  a  word 
from  their  messengers  to  join  in  the  surprise.  The  arguments 
of  the  Creeks,  so  the  Carolinians  had  reason  to  believe,  had 
almost  won  Cherokee  consent  when  suddenly,  ‘as  Providence 
order’d  it  they  Chang’d  their  minds  and  fell  upon  the  Creeks 
and  Yamusees  who  were  in  their  Towns  and  kill’d  every  man 
of  them.’60  Hoping  to  cut  off  the  Creek  army  in  the  woods  be¬ 
fore  they  had  news  of  this  overwhelming  defeat  of  their 
diplomacy,  English  and  Cherokee  pursued  them  several  days, 
but  by  the  end  of  January  it  was  clear  that  they  had  escaped. 

■’“Compare  [Journal  of  the  March],  pp.  345-6,  with  assembly  to  agents, 
March  15,  1715/16,  loc.  cit.,  and  Le  Jau  to  S.P.G.,  March  19,  1715/16,  S.P.G.  , 
MSS,  B,  IV,  part  1,  58. 

60  Assembly  to  agents,  March  15,  1715/16,  loc.  cit. 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


183 


The  consequences  of  this  wilderness  drama  were  far  reach¬ 
ing.  Apparently  the  extermination  of  the  Carolina  force,  which 
must  have  rekindled  the  fires  of  war  on  a  larger  front,  had  been 
narrowly  averted.  Among  the  Cherokee  divisions  and  hesita¬ 
tions  were  ended.  On  the  other  hand  the  mirage  of  peace  with 
the  Creeks,  the  center  of  the  old  trading  system,  retreated  into 
the  distance.  The  Lower  Creeks  themselves  shortly  made  their 
great  migration  westward  from  the  Ochese  country  to  their  old 
village  sites  of  the  years  before  1690  on  the  Chattahoochee. 
It  was  the  massacre  at  Tugaloo,  the  South  Carolina  assembly 
reported,  that  induced  ‘the  Whole  nation’  to  move  themselves 
‘nearer  to  the  French  at  Moville.’61  With  the  flight  of  the 
Yamasee  to  Florida  the  Creek  hegira  brought  to  a  full  period 
that  cycle  in  southern  Indian  history  which  began  three  decades 
before  with  the  intrusions  of  the  English  traders  into  Guale  and 
Apalachicola. 

Soon  after  the  Tugaloo  episode  the  expedition  was  reduced 
to  fifty  brisk  men  under  Colonel  Theophilus  Hastings;  at  the 
Conjurer’s  request  Captain  Pight’s  negroes  also  remained.  The 
rest  of  the  army  returned  by  the  Keowee  trail  to  Savannah 
Town  and  was  dispersed  among  the  garrisons.  Caesar,  how¬ 
ever,  was  angered  that  so  small  a  force  had  been  left,  and  later 
it  was  agreed  to  maintain  one  hundred  men  in  the  mountains 
under  Lieutenant-General  Moore.62  Moore  went  up  to  the 
Cherokees  as  an  agent  to  reopen  the  trade  as  well  as  to  direct 
the  war  against  ‘their  and  our  Enemies,’  the  Creeks.  In  March 
1716,  the  Assembly  reduced  the  size  of  the  army  in  the  settle¬ 
ments,  and  the  number  of  the  garrisons.63  The  forces  from 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  too,  were  returned  to  their 
homes. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Le  Jau  of  Goose  Creek  probably  re¬ 
flected  the  general  view  in  the  province  when  he  hailed  the 
surprising  turn  of  events  in  the  Cherokee  country  as  this  ‘won- 
derfull  Deliverance  for  us,  and  for  me  in  particular  who  had 
my  only  Son  in  our  Army  in  the  Cherikee  towns.  It  seems,’  he 
added,  ‘we  have  nothing  more  to  do  but  send  some  of  our  men 

61  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  78. 

“Assembly  to  agents,  March  15,  1715/16,  loc.  cit.  JCHA,  February  29, 
March  1,  2,  5,  8,  1715/16. 

63  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  634. 


184 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


to  head  the  Cherikees  against  the  Crick  if  they  think  fit  to 
stand  against  us.’64  Craven  also  asserted  confidently  that  ‘the 
war  is  in  a  fair  way  to  be  extinguished.’65  The  assembly,  to  be 
sure,  continued  to  send  gloomy  reports  home  to  the  colony 
agents.  But  there  existed,  certainly,  a  political  motive  for  this 
pessimism :  to  complete  the  discrediting  of  the  proprietary 
regime.  Sporadic  forays  continued  during  1716  and,  indeed, 
for  many  years  after;  in  a  real  sense,  however,  Maurice 
Moore’s  march  to  the  Cherokees,  following  Daniel’s  expulsion 
of  the  Yamasee  from  Guale,66  ended  the  great  Indian  con¬ 
spiracy.  Peace  was  soon  concluded  with  the  Catawbas  and  the 
smaller  northern  tribes  who  took  their  cue  from  the  Cherokee. 
It  was  not,  to  be  sure,  until  1717  that  a  peace,  and  then  an  un¬ 
certain  one,  was  effected  with  the  Creeks.  But  in  1716  pre¬ 
liminary  negotiations  were  opened,  and  these  caused  the  aban¬ 
donment  of  the  joint  campaign  against  the  Muskogee  from  the 
Cherokee  country.  By  the  spring  of  1716  South  Carolina  had 
begun  to  count  the  costs  and  to  plan  reconstruction. 

‘We  are  just  now  the  poorest  Colony  in  all  America,’  de¬ 
clared  a  Carolinian  in  1718,  ‘and  have  both  before  us  at  Sea 
and  behind  us  at  Land  very  distracting  appearances  of  ruine.’67 
Actual  loss  of  life  had  fortunately  been  small,  but  the  border 
areas,  especially  Granville  county,  had  been  depopulated.  Only 
slowly  did  settlers  return  to  a  region  which  for  many  years  lay 
open  to  Yamasee  forays.  The  province  had  received  an  ill  name 
for  safety  at  a  time  when  foreign  Protestant  emigration  was 
rapidly  rising.  With  the  white  population  static,  and  a  continual 
importation  of  slaves,  the  increasing  disproportion  of  blacks  to 
whites  caused  alarm  for  colonial  defense.  The  destruction  of 
crops  was  soon  repaired,  but  the  blow  to  cattle-raising  in  the 
southern  parishes  and  hence  to  the  provision  trade  with  the 
West  Indies  seems  to  have  been  serious.  ‘The  Trade  for  Beef 
and  Pork,’  wrote  Francis  Yonge  in  1722,  ‘which  was  to  Bar- 
badoes,  and  the  several  Leward  Caribbee  Islands,  the  Bahamas, 

M  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  part  1,  58. 

65  JCHA,  February  29,  1715/16. 

“Assembly  to  agents,  March  15,  1715/16,  loc.  cit.,  and  Johnston’s  letter 
of  January  27,  1715/16  (S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  21)  refer  to  capture  of  Yoa 
King,  father  of  the  Yamasee  Prince. 

c:  Fulham  Palace  MSS,  South  Carolina,  no.  117  (transcript,  Library  of 
Congress). 


THE  YAMASEE  WAR 


185 


Jamaica,  &c.,  has  been  very  much  interrupted  by  the  late  Indian 
War,  which  not  only  destroyed  the  Stocks  of  Cattle,  but  drove 
most  of  the  Inhabitants  to  the  Southward,  where  the  greatest 
Stocks  of  Cattle  were,  from  their  Plantations.  .  .  .  Thus,  ( for 
some  Years  at  least)  those  unfortunate  People  have  lost  that 
Branch  of  their  Trade.’68  More  serious  was  the  total  loss,  for 
the  time  being,  of  the  Indian  trade,  in  1715  still  the  main  branch 
of  South  Carolina  commerce.69  To  the  recapture  of  this  trade, 
however,  the  best  energies  of  the  province  were  devoted.  Meas¬ 
ured  by  exports  of  deerskins,  the  recovery  was  complete  by 
1722. 70  But  in  terms  of  empire,  the  influence  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina  arising  from  Indian  alliances  had  notably  declined  since 
the  climax  of  her  western  expansion  under  Nairne  and  Hughes. 

For  the  Spanish  and  French  had  not  failed  to  take  advan¬ 
tage  of  South  Carolina’s  extremity.  When,  after  many  anxious 
months,  the  attacks  on  the  settlements  had  been  suppressed,  the 
wavering  Cherokee  secured  in  their  allegiance,  communication 
reopened  with  the  loyal  Chickasaw,  and  an  uncertain  peace 
concluded  with  the  Creeks,  the  situation  on  the  southern  fron¬ 
tier  had  been  seriously  altered,  in  a  sense  unfavorable  to  Eng¬ 
lish  ambitions.  With  the  desertion  of  the  Yamasees  to  Florida 
and  the  removal  of  the  Lower  Creeks  to  the  Chattahoochee, 
the  Spaniards,  from  negligible  rivals,  had  become  formidable 
contenders  for  the  alliance  of  the  Creek  Indians.  Under  Brims 
and  his  successors  the  Creeks  were  able  to  play  for  many  genera¬ 
tions  the  role  of  the  custodians  of  the  wilderness  balance  of 
power  in  the  South.  The  French,  moreover,  had  recovered  their 
control  of  the  Mississippi  River  tribes.  By  planting  Fort  Tou¬ 
louse  at  the  forks  of  the  Alabama,  a  few  months  only  before 
the  English  peace  with  the  Creeks,  they  secured  the  most 
valuable  strategic  position  in  the  southern  Indian  country. 

In  one  important  respect,  however,  the  situation  of  South 
Carolina  as  the  southern  frontier  of  the  English  colonies  was 
markedly  improved  as  a  result  of  the  Indian  war.  The  colonial 
authorities  at  home  were  soon  forced  to  recognize  the  existence 
of  an  imperial  problem  in  that  quarter  of  America  with  which 

68  Francis  Yonge,  View  of  the  Trade  of  South-Carolina,  1722,  p.  6. 

00  Ibid.  Cf.  Boston  News  Letter,  November  5,  1716;  Commons  House 
answers  to  queries,  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  205. 

,0  See  Appendix  A,  Table  II. 


186 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


the  Proprietors  had  been  unable  to  cope.  A  direct  result  of  the 
war,  and  of  the  Proprietors’  opposition  to  provincial  measures 
of  reconstruction,  was  the  overthrow  of  their  discredited  gov¬ 
ernment.  By  slow  degrees,  as  control  of  the  province  passed  to 
the  Crown,  there  was  impressed  upon  the  Board  of  Trade  and 
the  Privy  Council  the  point  of  view  developed  by  Blake  and 
Moore  and  Nairne,  and  now  set  forth  by  the  South  Carolina 
assembly  and  its  agents :  that  South  Carolina  was  ‘a  Barrier 
and  might  be  made  a  Bulwark  to  all  his  Majesties  Collonys  on 
the  South  West  Part  of  the  Continent.’71  The  culmination  of  a 
series  of  efforts  to  strengthen  the  southern  frontier  against  the 
French  as  well  as  the  Spanish  was  the  establishment  of  the 
march  colony  of  Georgia. 

71C.O.  5:1265,  Q  76. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Defense  and  Reconstruction,  1715-1732 

The  larger  strategy  of  the  southern  frontier,  as  Carolinians 
constantly  urged  in  England,  was  an  imperial  concern;  but 
defense  of  the  immediate  border  and  reconstruction  of  the 
shattered  Indian  system  were  obviously  provincial  problems.  To 
them  much  energy  was  devoted  in  the  years  which  followed  the 
Indian  rising. 

On  the  whole  the  militia  had  served  the  province  well,  and 
it  was  continued  after  the  Indian  war  substantially  as  organ¬ 
ized  by  the  acts  of  1703  and  1707.  In  1721  dragoons  were 
added,  and  the  patrols  were  absorbed  into  the  militia.1  The 
chief  result  of  the  debacle  of  1715  was  the  creation  of  a  new 
system  of  defenses  for  the  southwestern  border,  deserted  by  the 
friendly  Indians  who  had  constituted  its  screen,  exposed,  in¬ 
deed,  to  attack  by  those  same  Indians,  now  renegades.  Frontier 
posts  and  rangers  accordingly  took  the  place  of  the  sentry-towns 
of  Palachacolas,  Savannahs,  Apalache,  Yuchi,  and  Congaree. 

Some  sort  of  traders’  blockhouse  had  from  early  days  over¬ 
looked  the  focus  of  the  western  trails  at  Savannah  Town,  and 
very  early,  indeed,  there  was  an  ‘Oldfort’  on  the  right 
bank  near  where  Augusta  later  rose.2  It  was  apparently  some 
such  traders’  strong-house  that  was  garrisoned  by  the  Chero- 
kee-Creek  expedition  in  the  winter  of  1715-1716.  Soon,  how¬ 
ever,  a  new  fort  was  constructed,  appropriately  named  Fort 
Moore.  This  served  both  as  garrison  and  trading-post  for  the 
supply  of  the  inland  tribes,  and  in  1717  was  placed  under  the 
inspection  of  the  Indian  commissioners.  In  August,  1716,  they 
instructed  their  factor  to  build  the  main  storehouse  within  the 

1  McCord  (ed.),  Statutes,  IX,  appendix,  pp.  617,  625,  631.  Smith,  South 
Carolina  as  a  Royal  Province,  chapter  v.  In  1708  Johnson  and  the  council 
reported  that  the  militia  comprised  some  950  whites  in  two  foot-regiments, 
each  of  eight  companies  of  about  fifty  men ;  an  independent  company  of 
Huguenots,  forty-five  men ;  the  governor’s  guard  troop,  forty  men ;  and 
ten  patrols,  each  of  ten  men,  to  hold  the  slaves  in  check,  and  in  invasions 
to  protect  the  women  and  children.  There  were  also  negro  auxiliaries,  for 
each  militia  captain  was  required  by  law  ‘to  enlist,  traine  up  and  bring  into 
the  field  for  each  white,  one  able  Slave  armed  with  a  gun  or  lance.’  Be¬ 
sides,  there  were  the  Indian  allies  (C.O.  5:1264,  P  82). 

2  Above,  p.  44. 


[187] 


188 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


body  of  the  fort,  and  to  provide  a  small  trading-room  for  In¬ 
dians  in  the  outworks.  ‘I  look  upon  Savano  Garison,’  the 
deputy-governor  wrote  at  this  time,  ‘as  the  key  of  our  Settle¬ 
ment.  It  is  the  Storehouse  where  we  lay  our  Arms,  Ammunition 
and  Necessaries  for  the  Supply  of  the  Cherikees,  and  other  our 
Friendly  Indians.’3  From  1716  to  1725  Fort  Moore  was  com¬ 
manded  by  Captain  Gerard  Monger ;  he  was  succeeded  by  Major 
David  Durham.  Men  for  this  and  other  garrisons  on  the  fron¬ 
tier  were  drawn  from  the  militia.  So  long  as  the  public  trade 
continued  the  province  servants  also  made  up  part  of  its  com¬ 
plement.  The  garrison  was  somewhat  reduced  in  1721,  in  the 
expectation  that  part  of  the  King’s  independent  company  would 
be  stationed  there  until  they  could  proceed  to  the  Altamaha. 
In  1724  and  1731  it  was  composed  of  a  commander,  a  lieuten¬ 
ant,  a  sergeant,  and  twenty-four  privates.4  As  in  the  case  of 
Fort  King  George  efforts  were  made  to  strengthen  the  post  by 
permanent  settlement.5 

A  second  logical  location  for  a  fort  and  factory  in  the  upper 
country  was  at  Congaree,  near  the  site  of  Columbia,  where 
the  Catawba  path  branched  off  from  the  trail  to  the  Cherokee 
via  Ninety-Six.  A  post  was  projected  in  1716,  in  keeping  with 
Moore’s  promise  to  the  Conjurer,  but  was  not  actually  built 
until  two  years  later.  In  December,  1717,  the  province  author¬ 
ized  the  payment  of  a  captain  and  twelve  privates  ‘for  a  gar¬ 
rison  to  be  built  at  Congarees,’  and  Charles  Russell  was  given 
command.  In  1720  the  garrison  numbered  twenty  men.  But  its 
maintenance  proved  burdensome  at  a  time  when  the  cost  of 
frontier  defense  was  agitating  the  assembly,  and  in  1722  the 
council  ordered  its  reduction.  With  the  abandonment  of  Con¬ 
garee  Fort  the  inland  defenses  were  confined  to  the  line  of  the 
Savannah  River.6 

In  the  new  system  of  Indian  defense  another  position  of 
considerable  strategic  value  was  the  place  long  known  as  ‘Pal- 

3  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  634,  696;  III.  23-30.  JIC,  August  11,  1716. 
JCHA,  December  28,  1716.  The  first  use  I  have  found  of  the  name  Fort 
Moore  is  in  ibid.,  November  22,  1716. 

4  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  84,  238,  308.  JCHA_,  August  5,  11,  12,  15, 
1721  ;  June  11,  1724;  March  12,  28,  1724/5.  Smith,  op.  cit.,  p.  208. 

3  See  below,  pp.  282-3. 

“Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  23;  JCHA,  May  19,  June  15,  30,  November 
17,  1716;  August  5,  11,  12,  15,  1721 ;  JC,  June  5,  1722;  JIC,  July  10,  11,  1716. 


DEFENSE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 


189 


achacolas,’  at  the  extreme  western  corner  of  Granville  county, 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Savannah,  opposite  the  deserted  Pal- 
achacola  Old  Town.  Thirty  miles  by  land  from  Port  Royal,  a 
five  days’  row  upstream,  this  had  long  been  an  important  stage 
on  the  traders’  route  to  the  interior.  Moreover,  it  commanded 
the  usual  route  of  invasion  of  Yamasee  and  other  raiders.  A 
company  of  rangers  had  been  established  there  for  a  number 
of  years  when,  in  1723,  the  assembly  appropriated  £400  for 
the  building  of  a  small  palisaded  fort,  equipped  with  light 
cannon.  William  Bellinger  was  appointed  to  command,  with  a 
lieutenant,  a  sergeant,  and  nineteen  privates,  later  reduced  to 
fourteen,  and  then  to  ten.  Once  a  fortnight  this  garrison  was 
required  to  range  down  to  the  old  ‘Indian  Land’  about  the 
Coosawhatchie  and  Tulafina  Rivers,  and  northward  also  to¬ 
wards  the  traders’  path  from  Charles  Town  to  Fort  Moore. 
Their  special  duty  was  to  maintain  the  bounds  of  the  Indian 
hunt  at  the  Savannah  River.  Inducements  similar  to  those  at 
Savannah  Town  were  made  in  the  hope  of  attracting  settlers.7 

The  third  key  to  the  southern  border  was  Port  Royal,  com¬ 
manding  as  it  did  the  inland  passage  to  Florida  and  the  river- 
route  to  the  interior.  A  garrison  of  twenty-eight  men  was  placed 
there  by  act  of  March,  1716;  reinforced  by  the  Tuscarora  In¬ 
dians,  they  prosecuted  the  punitive  campaigns  against  the 
Yamasee  in  Guale.  Nearby,  Beaufort  Town  was  settled  in  the 
years  immediately  following  the  war;  Beaufort  Fort  became 
the  base  for  the  two  scout-boats  which  comprised  the  provincial 
‘navy.’  The  garrison  was  divided  into  two  crews,  one  to  remain 
constantly  at  the  fort,  except  in  emergencies,  the  other  to  patrol 
the  inland  passage  between  Port  Royal  and  the  Altamaha.  But 
the  fort  fell  into  decay;  in  1723  the  assembly  had  to  appropriate 
£400  for  repairs  to  make  it  serviceable  against  Indian  attack. 
For  several  years  it  was  quite  unoccupied.  Then  in  1727,  after 
the  burning  of  Fort  King  George,  the  invalid  company  retired 
to  Port  Royal.  In  1734  the  old  Indian  fort  and  scout-base  was; 
replaced  by  Fort  Frederick,  an  oyster-shell  construction,  main¬ 
tained  thereafter  until  1743. 8 

7  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  179,  238,  257,  308;  JC,  February  23,  1723; 
C.O.  5:358,  A  9;  359,  B  23.  Smith,  op.  cit.,  p.  209,  incorrectly  located  the 
fort  on  the  Georgia  side  of  the  river ;  but  see  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.,  General,  7. 

8  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  634;  III.  7,  23,  186;  JC,  August  3,  1727; 
March  14,  1727/8 ;  August  13,  1731 ;  February  16,  1731/2;  SCHGM,  IX. 
145  ;  Smith,  op.  cit.,  p.  210. 


190 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


None  of  the  frontier  forts  was  formidable  except  against 
the  Indians ;  moreover,  they  were  too  widely  spaced  to  prevent 
marauders  from  penetrating  into  the  settlements.  Consequently 
they  were  supplemented  in  December,  1716,  by  a  scheme  of 
rangers,  based  on  the  experience  of  the  Yamasee  War,  and  also, 
probably,  on  the  example  of  Virginia.  Like  the  garrisons,  the 
rangers  were  paid  wages  and  recruited  from  the  militia.  Three 
ranges  were  described  by  the  act  of  1717.  The  first,  ‘the  old 
Palachacola  range’  between  the  ‘Indian  Land’  and  the  Savannah 
path,  was  patrolled  by  a  captain,  lieutenant,  and  twenty-eight 
men.  A  second  band  of  five  privates  and  a  captain,  ‘commonly 
called  the  western  rangers,’  had  their  headquarters  at  Rawlings’ 
plantation  at  Edisto  Bluff.  Nine  men  and  a  captain  composed 
the  northern  rangers.  Although  for  several  years  the  ranges 
were  apparently  discontinued,  in  1727  and  in  1731  small  bodies 
of  rangers  again  appeared  on  the  province  rolls.  Similar  guard 
against  Indian  and  other  enemies  was  kept  by  the  Port  Royal 
scout-boats,  which  also  helped  to  apprehend  runaway  slaves. 
The  scouts  were  in  service  as  early  as  1713,  when  one  boat  was 
directed  to  cruise  from  Port  Royal  to  St  Augustine,  the  other 
from  Stono  to  Port  Royal.  In  1717  they  were  reestablished 
with  Colonel  Barnwell  as  a  commissioner  in  charge.  These 
were  the  rough-and-ready  frontiersmen  whom  he  employed  in 
1721  to  erect  the  Altamaha  fort.9 

At  various  times  the  provincial  government  made  not  very 
successful  attempts  to  rebuild  the  old  Indian  bulwark  on  the 
southern  border.  In  1721  the  agent  Hastings  undertook  to 
draw  part  of  the  Creeks  back  to  the  Altamaha  River,  and  an 
act  was  passed  appropriating  not  more  than  £1000  for  the 
expenses  of  removal.  The  next  year  the  province  encouraged 
the  Chickasaws,  hard  pressed  by  the  French  and  their  allies,  to 
retreat  to  the  Carolina  borders.  The  Commons  proposed  to 
place  them  on  the  Oconee  or  Ogeechee,  but  the  small  band  which 
migrated  eastward  preferred  to  settle  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Savannah  near  Fort  Moore.  Several  years  later  it  was  sug¬ 
gested  that  they  remove  to  a  place  opposite  Palachacola  Fort. 

"Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  607,  691;  III.  9,  23,  180;  JCHA,  November 
13,  1716;  June  12,  August  23,  1717 ;  December  19,  1722;  JC,  January  19, 
1723;  September  22,  1727;  Smith,  op.  cit.,  pp.  182,  187 f. 


DEFENSE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 


191 


The  Commons,  however,  opposed  another  scheme  to  transfer 
the  Cape  Fear  Indians  to  the  southern  border.10 

Thus  on  the  immediate  border  of  South  Carolina,  the  Port 
Royal-Savannah  River  line  was  reestablished.  In  the  Indian 
country,  beyond,  other  frontier  forts  were  from  time  to  time 
proposed  to  support  the  Carolina  traders  and  to  offset  the 
‘encroachments’  of  the  Spanish  and  French.  In  1720  John  Barn¬ 
well  persuaded  the  Board  of  Trade  to  endorse  an  ambitious 
scheme  for  distant  royal  posts  throughout  the  southern  Indian 
country,  and  in  1721,  as  the  first  step  in  this  policy,  Fort  King 
George  was  built  for  the  Crown  at  the  mouth  of  the  Alta- 
maha.11  But  the  province  was  too  poor,  and  the  colonial  authori¬ 
ties  at  home  too  indifferent,  to  complete  the  program.  Never¬ 
theless  these  suggestions  in  the  period  immediately  preceding 
1730  were  significant  of  a  provincial  interest  in  southwestward 
expansion  which  had  a  more  than  casual  relation  to  the  colo¬ 
nization  of  Georgia. 

In  the  spring  of  1725,  just  before  Nicholson’s  return  to 
England,  the  royal  governor,  with  the  support  of  the  council, 
urged  the  building  by  province  funds  of  a  fort  at  the  forks  of 
the  Altamaha,  in  the  heart  of  the  former  Lower  Creek  country. 
But  the  Commons,  begrudging  the  expense,  and  already  locked 
in  the  long  struggle  with  the  council  over  paper-money  issues, 
would  only  admit  that  private  persons,  that  is,  such  merchant- 
traders  as  John  Bee,  might  undertake  the  task.  Twice  the  bill 
was  rejected  and  the  project  lapsed.12  In  the  next  years  rela¬ 
tions  with  both  the  Creeks  and  the  Cherokee  grew  increasingly 
complex.  During  the  crisis  of  1727  the  council  and  the  confer¬ 
ence  committee  on  Indian  affairs  agreed  that  a  fort  should  be 
built  at  Okfuskee  in  the  Upper  Creek  country  as  an  asylum 
for  the  traders ;  and  the  following  year,  when  the  Creek  expe¬ 
dition  was  abandoned,  proposed  to  erect  another  fort  in  the 
Lower  Towns  in  lieu  of  sending  out  an  army.13  The  committee 
on  Indian  affairs  in  1729  favored  two  garrisons,  of  twenty-five 

“JCHA,  August  28,  1721;  June  21,  1722;  JC,  June  21,  August  4,  1722; 
May  21,  1726;  August  3,  September  21,  1727 ;  February  29,  1727/8;  C.O. 
5:359,  B  28  (10)  ;  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes ,  III.  158. 

11  See  below,  pp.  229-34. 

13  JCHA,  March  6,  April  9,  13,  14,  15,  1725;  JC,  May  29,  31,  1725; 
Tobias  Fitch,  journal,  in  Mereness  (ed.),  Travels,  p.  203. 

13  JC,  September  22,  1727;  April  10,  1728. 


192 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


men  each,  in  the  Cherokee  and  Creek  nations  ‘to  prevent  the 
encroachments  of  the  French  and  Spaniards  and  any  disturb¬ 
ances  that  may  otherways  happen  among  the  Indians,’  the  cost 
to  be  defrayed  by  a  10%  levy  on  the  Indian  trade.  Again  in 
1731  a  Cherokee  fort  was  proposed,  but  until  Governor  Glen’s 
time  it  was  not  effected.14  In  1733  Georgia  took  over  the  task 
of  supporting  the  southwestern  border  against  the  Creeks  and 
the  French  and  Spanish  Indians. 

After  the  Yamasee  War  the  expenses  of  defense  and  of 
Indian  management  constituted  the  principal  items  in  the  bud¬ 
get  of  South  Carolina,  and  furnished  the  chief  excuse  for  the 
issue  of  bills  of  credit.  A  paper  received  by  the  Board  of  Trade 
in  1730,  entitled  ‘Answers  of  Merchants  to  Queries,’  stated 
that  there  were  then  outstanding  bills  to  the  amount  of  £106,- 
355  currency,  or  £15,193  1U  sterling.  The  fund  for  paying 
them  consisted  of  duties  upon  negroes  and  liquors,  but  this  had 
been  broken  in  upon  to  pay  the  expenses  of  expeditions  against 
pirates  and  Spanish  privateers,  and  ‘to  maintain  Guards,  Gar¬ 
risons  and  Scout  Boats  upon  the  Frontiers.’15 

The  appropriation  bill  of  1725, 16  to  cover  the  expenses  of 
the  year  from  September  29,  1725,  to  September  29,  1726,  may 
be  taken  as  typical.  It  provided  for  the  raising  of  £20,260  18^ 
10 l/2d  (£2,894  8s  5 d  sterling).  The  following  items  are  of 


particular  interest : 

Commander  of  Fort  Moore,  one  year  £250  curr. 

Lieutenant  of  Fort  Moore  144 

Serjeant  of  Fort  Moore  96 

24  men  at  Fort  Moore,  £6  per  month  1,728 

Provisions  at  Fort  Moore,  twelve  months  810 

Medicines,  etc.  50 

Commander  of  Pallachucola  garrison,  one  yr.  250 

Lieutenant  144 

Serjeant  96 


14JCHA,  January  31,  1728/9;  February  25,  1730/1. 

15  C.O.  5  :361,  C  68. 

10  Cooper  ( ed. ) ,  Statutes,  III.  257.  Miscellaneous  expenses  of  Indian  man¬ 
agement,  aside  from  salaries  of  commissioner,  secretary,  etc.,  included :  ‘to 
Colonel  Hastings  as  a  linguist,  upon  occasion,  for  one  year,  one  hundred 
pounds,  to  be  paid  quarterly;  to  John  Chester,  for  going  with  an  express 
to  the  Cherokees,  forty  pounds;  to  charges  of  expresses,  etc.,  one  hundred 
pounds ;  ...  to  Colonel  Hastings,  for  salary,  three  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds ;  ...  to  Colonel  Herbert,  for  mapps,  twelve  pounds.’  An  increasing 
item  was  the  entertainment  of  Indian  delegations,  which  became  a  great 
burden. 


DEFENSE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 


193 


14  men 

1,008 

Provisions 

510 

Necessaries 

25 

Commanders  of  two  scout  boats 

360 

12  men,  £8  per  month 

1,152 

Provisions  for  14  men 

364 

Necessaries 

20 

As  the  best  means  to  insure  lasting  peace  with  the  Indians, 
Governor  Craven,  in  February,  1716,  exhorted  the  assembly 
to  consider  ‘in  the  most  disinterested  manner  ...  in  what 
method  the  trade  with  the  Indians  ought  now  to  be  carried  on 
and  regulated,  fatal  experience  having  taught  us,  that  the  meas¬ 
ures  hitherto  taken  are  neither  safe  nor  beneficial  to  the  pub¬ 
lic.’17  The  result  was  the  act  of  June  30,  1716, 18  altering  the 
whole  system  of  Indian  trade  regulation.  For  the  first  time 
there  was  set  up  the  regime  so  often  advocated  by  the  planters 
of  the  Commons  House,  and  so  strenuously  resisted  by  the 
merchants  of  the  council :  a  public  monopoly.  Probably  only 
the  existing  emergency  could  have  broken  down  mercantile 
resistance  to  this  plan.  The  chief  objection  raised  by  the  council 
was  on  the  score  of  their  claim  to  a  share  in  the  control  of  the 
trade.  But  when  Daniel  insisted  that  one  of  the  commissioners 
should  be  a  councillor,  the  Commons  in  reply  cited  the  act  of 
1707  declaring  their  right  to  name  and  remove  all  public 
salaried  officers.19 

Thus  in  the  period  of  reconstruction  the  South  Carolina 
Indian  trade  constituted  a  monopoly,  closely  controlled  by  the 
popular  branch  of  the  assembly.  It  was  conducted  by  a  public 
corporation  of  five  commissioners,  subject  to  the  instructions  of 
the  Commons  House.  The  first  commissioners  were  named  in 
the  act;  and  though  the  board  was  made  self-perpetuating,  in 
several  instances  it  appears  that  the  Commons  dictated  changes 
in  personnel.  These  occurred  rather  frequently,  for  the  duties 
were  onerous.  The  commissioners  were  uniformly  men  of 
standing  and  experience  in  Indian  affairs,  great  planters,  for 
the  most  part,  who  had  served  in  the  Indian  wars.  They  in¬ 
cluded  Colonel  George  Logan,  Ralph  Izard,  and  Major  John 

17  JCHA,  February  29,  1715/16. 

18  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  677ff.  Articles  i  and  ii,  not  extant,  may  be 
inferred  from  the  JIC. 

“JCHA,  March  7,  June  15,  16,  20,  21,  27,  29,  30,  1716. 


194 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Fenwick,  of  the  old  Indian  board,  Colonel  Barnwell,  after 
Nairne  the  ablest  frontiersman  in  the  province,  George  Chicken, 
Jonathan  Drake,  and  Francis  Yonge.20  The  board  held  fre¬ 
quent  meetings :  in  the  first  year  there  were  over  one  hundred 
sessions.  The  salary  of  a  commissioner  was  £150  a  year. 

Another  striking  but  unsuccessful  innovation  in  1716  was 
the  restriction  of  trade  to  factories  on  the  frontiers.  It  was  the 
‘resolution  and  Sense  of  the  whole  Country,’  the  commissioners 
informed  Hastings,  ‘not  to  have  any  more  a  settled  store  among 
the  Indians,  but  by  degrees  cause  the  Indians  to  come  to  our 
Forts  and  purchase  what  they  want.’21  At  Charles  Town  the 
public  trade  employed  a  cashier  (a  member  of  the  board),  and  a 
storekeeper.  The  latter  received  and  sold  the  skins  and  furs  and 
slaves  sent  down  from  the  factories,  and  traded  with  the  settle¬ 
ment  Indians  and  with  visiting  delegations  of  Indian  chiefs.22 
At  first  three  factories  only  were  provided :  Winyah,  Congaree, 
and  Savannah  Town.  On  the  Black  River,  William  Watis,  Sr., 
and  later  Meredith  Hughes,  traded  with  the  coast  tribes  of  the 
North  Carolina  border.23  The  Catawba  trade  was  in  charge  of 
Eleazer  Wigan,  succeeded  in  1718  by  Captain  James  How.24 
Virginian  competition  among  the  Catawba  compelled  the  aban¬ 
donment  of  the  use  of  burdeners,  and  in  1717  James  Coleman 
was  made  manager  of  the  pack-horses  in  that  trade,  and  next 
year  of  the  pack-horses  sent  to  the  Cherokee.25  The  duties  of 
Major  Blakeney  and  his  assistant,  later  his  successor,  Charles- 
worth  Glover,  were  more  onerous  than  those  of  the  other  public 
employees.  For  Savannah  Town  was  both  a  factory  where  the 
Cherokee,  and  later  the  Creeks,  were  encouraged  to  trade  by 
the  offer  of  lower  prices  and  the  sale  of  rum,  elsewhere  pro- 

20  Logan,  Izard,  Barnwell,  Charles  Hill,  and  James  Moore  (who  refused 
to  act)  were  the  original  members. 

21JIC,  July  24,  1716. 

“Thomas  Barton,  the  first  storekeeper,  was  succeeded  by  John  Barn¬ 
well  (ibid.,  July  4,  1716;  March  30,  1717).  Sales  were  usually  by  public 
vendue.  There  were  frequent  sales  of  slaves,  viz.,  February  9,  1717,  four 
women  and  their  two  children  for  £76  3d. ;  February  20,  seven  Indians  for 
£110;  February  25,  five  Indians  for  £200  15.?.;  March  2,  five  Indians  for 
£122  5s. ;  April  11,  one  woman  for  £30;  June  18,  nine  Indians  for  £468  10.?.; 
May  10,  1718,  one  boy,  £44  10.?. 

23  Ibid.,  July  10,  1716;  February  14,  1717.  For  a  time  a  trade  was  carried 
on  at  Santee  with  the  Winyah  (ibid.,  September  18,  1716;  March  7,  1718). 

24  Ibid.,  May  23,  1718. 

25  Ibid.,  November  9,  1717 ;  June  12,  1712. 


DEFENSE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 


195 


hibited,  and  also  a  depot  for  a  restricted  traffic  in  the  Indian 
country.26 

Among  the  Cherokee,  Colonel  Theophilus  Hastings  served 
as  chief  factor  until  his  talents  were  requisitioned  for  the  diffi¬ 
cult  business  of  negotiating  peace  and  trade  with  the  Creeks. 
Originally  it  was  intended  to  keep  Hastings  in  the  Cherokee 
towns  on  a  pretense  of  trade,  but  actually  in  the  capacity  of 
intelligence  officer  and  diplomat.27  In  1716  James  Moore  had 
reached  an  agreement  with  the  Conjurer  that  Cherokee  burden- 
ers  should  go  down  to  Savannah  Town  to  carry  up  all  goods 
to  the  mountains.28  The  board  then  instructed  Blakeney  to  send 
Hastings  cargoes  not  to  exceed  £600  in  prime  cost,  provided 
returns  were  received  before  more  goods  were  despatched.29 
Invoices  of  these  Cherokee  consignments  revealed  the  character 
of  the  trade.  On  July  23,  1716,  when  a  campaign  was  being 
planned  against  the  Creeks,  the  following  goods  were  sent  up 
by  twenty  Indians :  400  lbs.  of  fine  gun  powder,  250  lbs.  of 
bullets,  1000  flints,  seven  brass  kettles,  and  ‘20  yards  of  half 
thicks,  the  powder  is  packed  in  7  pieces  strouds.’  On  other 
occasions  invoices  amounting  to  £1437  14^  and  £1849  8.?  8 d 
were  despatched  by  91  and  159  burdeners  respectively.  In  Octo¬ 
ber,  1717,  two  burdeners  were  sent  off  with  liquor  for  Hatton 
and  the  assistant  factors,  with  the  explanation  that  ‘it  is  not, 
nor  ever  was,  the  intention  of  the  Board,  to  hinder  or  deprive 
any  of  their  Factors  from  a  glass  of  liquor  (at  their  own 
charge).’  A  periago  from  Savannah  Town  brought  down  to 
Charles  Town  in  October,  1716,  2087  dressed  skins,  89  raw 
skins,  36  beaver  from  the  Cherokee  factory,  and  29  dressed 
skins  from  the  Savannah  factory.  In  June,  1717,  Hastings 
accompanied  thirty-one  burdeners  bearing  nearly  a  thousand 
skins,  and  turned  over  twenty-one  Indian  slaves  which  he  had 
purchased.  For  the  carriage  of  skins  from  Tugaloo,  Hastings 
in  1716  wrote  that  each  man  should  receive  a  quarter  of  a  yard 
of  strouds  and  the  same  of  half-thicks,  or  a  pair  of  cotton 
stockings.30 

28  Ibid.,  July  10,  August  11,  September  25,  1716. 

27  Ibid.,  July  24,  1716. 

28  Ibid.,  July  10,  1716. 

23  Ibid.,  August  11,  1716. 

30  Ibid.,  July  12,  23,  October  10,  1716;  January  30,  June  11,  October  4, 
December  2,  1717. 


196 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


From  the  first,  Hastings  had  warned  Charles  Town  that 
the  ‘Cherokees  utterly  dislike  coming  down  to  the  Garrisons,  to 
deal,  and  will  not  agree  to  that  proposal,  on  any  account  (ex¬ 
cept  for  Rum).’31  In  January,  1717,  Daniel  called  the  assembly 
into  special  session.  The  dissatisfaction  over  the  method  of 
trade  he  thought  alarming.  ‘Caesar  assures  me,’  he  said,  ‘that 
if  they  cannot  be  supplied  with  what  Goods  they  want,  up  at 
their  Towns,  having  now  a  great  Number  of  Skins,  They  will 
be  forced  to  go  to  those  that  will  seek  their  Friendship.’  But 
on  a  motion  ‘whether  if  the  said  Cherikee  Indians,  being  satis¬ 
fied  or  not,  this  House  will  stand  by  the  Indian  trading  law?’ 
the  Commons  resolved  in  the  affirmative.  At  Hastings’  insis¬ 
tence,  however,  five  sub-factors  were  assigned  to  him,  and  the 
restriction  on  the  amount  of  the  Cherokee  consignments  was 
removed.  Several  factories  were  now  established  in  the  Chero¬ 
kee  country:  at  Keowee  and  Cowee,  and  later  at  Tugaloo,  in 
the  lower  towns ;  at  Quanasse  in  the  middle  settlements ;  and  at 
Tellico  among  the  Overhill  towns.  In  1718  pack-horses  were 
again  despatched  to  the  mountains.32 

Other  difficulties  arose  with  the  Indians  over  the  price  of 
goods  as  established  by  treaty  or  by  the  instructions  of  the 
Indian  board.33  In  November,  1716,  Hastings  supported  a 
Cherokee  plea  for  abatements.34  The  prices,  he  said,  were  higher 
than  those  agreed  upon  by  Moore.  The  next  year  Glover  re¬ 
ported  Indian  complaints  that  prices  at  Savannah  Town  were 
only  a  little  lower  than  those  in  the  Cherokee  towns,  and  that 
too  much  water  was  mixed  with  the  rum.  The  commissioners 
made  several  reductions  and  ordered  ‘in  the  mixture  with  Rum, 
a  convenient  proportion.’35 

More  effective  than  the  complaints  of  the  Indians  in  low¬ 
ering  prices  among  the  Catawba  and  the  Cherokee  was  the 
renewed  competition  of  the  Virginia  traders.  An  additional  act 
had  given  the  commissioners  considerable  authority  to  deal 
with  interlopers  in  the  trade,36  but  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they 

31  Ibid.,  November  7,  1716. 

3aJCHA,  January  17,  18,  24,  1716/7 ;  JIC,  November  1,  21,  1716;  Janu¬ 
ary  25,  29,  31, .March  22,  June  17,  1717. 

33  See  table,  Appendix  B. 

34  JIC,  November  1,  1716. 

35  Ibid.,  September  10,  1717. 

39  Cooper  ( ed. ) ,  Statutes,  II.  691. 


DEFENSE  AND 


RECONSTRUCTION  >  ,197 


commonly  described  the  Virginians  by  that  term,  their  powers 
were  actually  limited  to  excluding  Carolinians.  In  the  fall  of 
1717  Wigan  warned  of  Virginian  pack-horse  trains  among 
the  Catawba,  and  of  the  seduction  of  their  lower  prices.  Gov¬ 
ernor  and  council  in  conference  with  the  Indian  board  agreed 
that  the  northern  trade  must  be  continued,  even  at  a  loss  to  the 
public.37  By  1718  similar  competition  had  developed  among  the 
Cherokee.  The  board  then  ordered  a  reduction  of  rates  to  the 
level  of  the  recent  Creek  schedule.38 

In  spite  of  these  and  other  difficulties  the  monopoly  was 
maintained  until  1719,  and  on  a  smaller  scale  the  public  trade 
continued  until  1721.  Unquestionably  it  abated  most  of  the  old 
abuses,  and  so  helped  to  restore  peace  with  the  exasperated  in¬ 
land  tribes.  The  commercial  results  were  more  dubious.  Some 
years  later,  Thomas  Lamboll,  clerk  of  the  board,  gave  a  plausi¬ 
ble  account  to  an  assembly  committee  of  the  reasons  for  the 
failure  of  the  experiment.39  The  original  stock  of  £5000  cur¬ 
rency  was  appropriated  in  bills  of  credit  and  soon  proved  in¬ 
adequate,  but  the  board  also  received  loans  from  the  treasury, 
the  use  of  public  property,  and  the  services  of  a  number  of 
public  employees.  On  the  other  hand  serious  losses  were  in¬ 
curred  by  Indian  attacks  and  accidents.  Moreover,  Lamboll 
declared,  the  commissioners  set  out  ‘under  great  disadvantages 
by  buying  Goods  on  Credit  at  about  20%  advanced  price.’ 
This  reflected  the  widespread  suspicion  among  the  Charles 
Town  merchants  of  the  soundness  of  the  corporation,  and  also, 
perhaps,  their  hostility  to  a  public  monopoly.  One  of  them 
wrote  to  a  London  correspondent,  after  two  years  of  the  public 
trade,  that  ‘we  have  not  yet  nor  dare  yet  Venture  to  sell  any 
Indian  Trading  Goods  to  our  Company  who  have  no  founda¬ 
tion  nor  Stock  for  any  person  to  depend  on,  and  it’s  but  too 
likely  that  should  they  come  to  any  Loss  our  Assembly  would 
not  be  so  Just  as  to  make  it  good,  but  would  tell  their  Creditors 
that  they  did  not  Compell  them  to  Trust  the  Commissioners.’40 

Mercantile  opposition  crippled  the  public  monopoly.  Eventu- 


37  JIC,  April  27,  September  11,  20,  October  24,  1717 ;  April  11,  May  8, 
June  14,  1718. 

38  Ibid.,  October  4,  November  2,  23,  1717 ;  July  5,  19,  1718. 

39  JCHA,  May  21,  1734. 

4°C.O.  5:1265,  Q  158  (letter  of  June  13,  1718). 


198 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


ally  the  merchants  brought  about  the  repeal  of  the  act  by  the 
Lords  Proprietors.  When  the  act  was  renewed  for  five  years, 
in  1717, 41  this  action  was  denounced  in  letters  to  the  London 
merchant,  Stephen  Godin,  as  likely  to  lose  ‘all  our  Indians  who 
will  goe  over  to  the  French  Interest  and  become  greater  enemies 
than  ever.’42  Much  was  made  of  the  commerce  in  Indian  trading 
goods  which  had  sprung  up  from  Charles  Town  to  Mobile  and 
Pensacola.  The  issue  was  clearly  drawn  between  the  planters, 
whose  interest  in  the  trade  was  mainly  one  of  defense,  and  the 
merchants,  who  though  a  small  minority  in  the  province  had 
powerful  friends  in  London.  ‘The  country  has  engrossed  the 
Trade  through  a  Mercenary  and  Ignorant  Temper  which  reigns 
in  most  of  our  people,’  one  Charles  Town  merchant  com¬ 
plained.  "Tis  highly  reasonable  this  should  be  Remedied  by 
Disallowing  the  Act  at  home  as  they  have  done  that  of  the 
Virginia  Company.’  The  Virginia  Company,  to  be  sure,  was  a 
private  and  not  a  public  corporation,  but  the  distinction  was 
not  regarded  by  the  London  merchants,  who  attacked  both 
acts.  Stephen  Godin,  Joseph  Boone,  Samuel  Barons,  and  other 
merchants  trading  to  Carolina  petitioned  the  Proprietors,  and 
in  July,  1718,  the  latter  notified  the  governor  and  council  of 
the  repeal.43  This  action,  with  the  simultaneous  repeal  of  the 
land-grant  acts  by  which  the  province  had  attempted  to  repeople 
the  southern  border,  was  one  of  the  grievances  which  underlay 
the  anti-proprietary  revolution  in  1719.  There  was  a  certain 
irony  in  a  resolution  of  the  Commons  in  1720  directing  that 
the  merchant  Boone  be  informed,  as  colony  agent  in  London, 
that  the  recent  Indian  ravages  might  have  been  prevented  ‘had 
the  Indian  trading  Act  continued  in  force.’44 

The  merchants  had  destroyed  the  public  monopoly,  but  it 
is  evident  that  the  planters  dictated  the  substitute  act  of  1719, 
which  inaugurated  a  mixed  regime  of  public  and  private 
trade.45  The  stock  of  the  public  corporation  was  restored  by 

41  Cooper  (ed.) ,  Statutes,  III.  21. 

42C.O.  5:1265,  Q  158  (letter  of  December  17,  1717). 

43C.O.  5:290,  p.  117;  292,  p.  99. 

44  JCHA,  May  6,  1720. 

45  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  86-96.  In  October,  1720,  sixteen  London 
merchants  with  Carolina  connections  memorialised  the  Board  of  Trade  on 
‘what  may  be  done  to  retrieve  the  desolation  of  Carolina’ ;  they  urged  espe¬ 
cially  regulation  of  the  Indian  trade  to  prevent  abuses  and  recover  the 
old  alliances,  without  providing  a  monopoly  ‘exclusive  to  other  private 
adventurers’  (JBT,  October  27,  1720;  C.O.  5:358,  A  14+15). 


DEFENSE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 


199 


another  appropriation  of  £5000,  its  debts  were  guaranteed  to 
reestablish  its  credit,  and  the  commissioners  were  authorized 
to  purchase  goods  in  England  to  the  value  of  £3000  each  year. 
But  their  stock  was  limited  to  the  value  of  30,000  lbs.  of 
dressed  deerskins,  and  except  in  emergencies,  the  public  trade 
was  restricted  to  the  garrisons  at  Fort  Moore,  Congaree,  and 
Palachacola.  The  employees  were  reduced  to  sixty  men  under 
three  factors,  with  the  rank  of  captains,  and  three  sub-factors, 
with  the  rank  of  lieutenants  of  the  forts.  Within  twenty  miles 
of  each  factory  private  trading  was  prohibited.  Elsewhere,  so 
soon  as  traders  were  settled  in  any  Indian  nation  with  sufficient 
stocks,  the  public  effects  were  ordered  withdrawn.  Defense  was 
still  the  keynote  of  regulation.  The  proceeds  of  the  public  trade 
were  appropriated  to  the  pay  of  the  garrisons  and  of  the  com¬ 
missioners  and  their  servants;  any  surplus  was  to  be  used  to 
build  three  stone  or  brick  forts  at  the  trading-garrisons.  All 
skins  brought  by  private  dealers  from  the  Cherokee,  Catawba, 
or  from  beyond  the  Savannah,  paid  a  tax  of  10%  for  defense. 
But  the  system  was  transitional,  and  by  1721  the  change  to 
private  trade  was  completed.  Meanwhile,  as  Lamboll  pointed 
out,  ‘the  Public  Trade  maintained  [for]  about  three  years,  two 
Garrisons,  one  at  Savanna,  the  other  at  Congarees.’46 

One  of  the  first  results  of  the  establishment  of  royal  gov¬ 
ernment  in  South  Carolina  was  the  loss  by  the  Commons  House 
of  its  exclusive  control  over  Indian  regulation.  Naturally  a 
royal  governor,  backed  by  the  colonial  authorities,  was  a  more 
formidable  opponent  of  the  Commons  than  an  appointee  of  the 
Proprietors.  Nicholson,  moreover,  was  experienced,  vigorous 
in  his  assertion  of  prerogative,  and  able  to  capitalize  the 
prestige  of  a  regime  ushered  in  by  popular  revolution.  But  the 
board  system  of  regulation  survived  for  several  years.  In  1719 
and  again  in  1721, 47  when  the  inspection  of  the  garrisons  was 
added  to  the  board’s  duties,  the  three  commissioners  were  des¬ 
ignated  by  the  assembly.  In  February,  1723,  however,  the 
powers  of  the  commissioners  were  vested  in  the  governor  and 
any  three  members  of  the  council.48  For  a  year  Nicholson,  who 

46  See  note  39. 

"Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  141. 

48  Ibid.,  p.  184. 


200 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


gave  great  attention  to  frontier  affairs,  was  busily  engaged  in 
efforts  to  bring  order  among  the  traders,  in  issuing  instructions, 
receiving  delegations  of  Cherokee,  Creek  and  Chickasaw  chiefs, 
and  in  all  the  manifold  details  of  Indian  management.49  By 
October,  1723,  however,  he  was  ready  to  acknowledge  that  ‘the 
Various  Interests  of  the  Persons  concerned  in  the  .  .  .  Trade 
makes  it  very  Difficult  to  Manage  it,’  and  to  call  on  the  assem¬ 
bly  once  more  for  reform.50  The  difficulties  that  the  irascible 
governor  had  encountered  with  ‘refractory  and  insolent  traders’ 
were  reflected  in  his  suggestion  that  it  be  made  ‘a  felony  with¬ 
out  Benefit  of  Clergy  for  any  that  shall  disobey  the  orders 
given  them.’ 

In  the  act  of  172451  the  single  commissioner  system  of 
regulation  was  adopted,  and  the  Commons  House  recovered 
part  of  its  former  authority  over  Indian  management.  There¬ 
after  it  was  the  assembly,  by  agreement  of  both  houses,  that 
determined  policies,  appointed  commissioners  and  agents,  and 
advised  the  governor  in  his  negotiations  with  Indian  tribes; 
and  in  most  cases  the  Commons  House  dictated  both  appoint¬ 
ments  and  procedure.  It  was  the  speaker  of  the  House,  James 
Moore,  who  became  the  first  sole  commissioner,  with  all  the 
regulative  powers  of  the  acts  of  1721  and  1724.  At  his  death, 
soon  after,  George  Chicken  was  chosen.52  In  1727  Colonel 
Herbert  became  commissioner,53  and  Tobias  Fitch  in  1733. 54 
With  only  a  brief  interruption  this  method  of  the  single  com¬ 
missioner  was  continued  in  force  until  the  establishment  of 
Crown  control  over  Indian  affairs  in  1756.55 

Each  spring  the  Indian  commissioner  sat  at  Charles  Town 
to  issue  licenses  and  instructions  to  the  traders.  But  at  other 
seasons  he  was  usually  on  his  travels  far  into  the  interior.  At 
least  once  a  year  he  was  required  to  inspect  the  frontier  garri- 

”C.O.  5:359,  B  28  (10),  (11),  (12). 

“JCHA,  October  2,  1723;  January  22,  February  13,  1724;  Nicholson  to 
Board  of  Trade,  December  4,  1723,  C.O.  5:359,  B  43. 

51  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  229. 

53  C.O.  5:412  (act  of  March  28,  1724,  not  ;n  Cooper  or  Trott). 

53  Ibid,  (act  of  September  30,  1727). 

54  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  371. 

55  See  Smith,  op.  cit.,  p.  218,  for  later  commissioners.  In  1728  and  1731 
an  ‘open  company’  was  considered  but  not  pressed  because  of  the  settled 
policy  of  the  colonial  authorities  (JCHA,  March  6,  April  13,  1728;  Feb¬ 
ruary  25,  1731). 


DEFENSE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 


201 


sons.  Longer  journeys  to  regulate  the  trade  and  uphold  the 
Carolinian  interest  against  French  and  Spanish  were  also  part 
of  his  office.  The  act  of  1727  recpiired  that  Colonel  Herbert 
visit  the  various  Creek  and  Cherokee  towns  once  a  year,  and 
his  salary  was  therefore  increased  from  £600  to  £1000  cur¬ 
rency.  In  1731  it  was  fixed  at  £100  sterling.  In  all  respects  the 
commissioner  was  subject  to  the  directions  of  the  governor  and 
assembly,  though  in  great  emergencies  he  was  expected  to  use 
a  larger  discretion.56 

Thus  Chicken  and  his  successors  served  as  Indian  agents 
as  well  as  Indian  commissioners.  But  one  man  could  hardly  be 
expected  to  cover  the  whole  circuit  of  the  Carolina  alliances. 
Several  special  agents  were  therefore  employed  primarily  as 
Indian  diplomats,  until  in  1725  something  like  a  regular  Indian 
agency  again  came  into  existence.  In  view  of  his  great  services 
in  1717  in  reopening  relations  with  the  Creeks,  Colonel  Has¬ 
tings  was  retained  as  factor  in  the  Creek  nation  until  the 
abandonment  of  the  public  trade.  Thereafter  from  1721  to 
1725  he  resided  almost  continuously  among  the  Creeks  in  the 
double  character  of  a  private  trader  and  an  Indian  agent.  Wil¬ 
liam  Hatton,  his  successor  as  Cherokee  factor,  also  became  an 
agent  of  this  type  among  the  mountaineers.57  But  the  critical 
state  of  Indian  affairs  in  1725  demanded  the  undivided  atten¬ 
tion  of  entirely  disinterested  officials.  Tobias  Fitch  was  there¬ 
fore  appointed  Creek  agent,  and  the  commissioner,  Chicken, 
received  an  addition  to  his  salary  to  undertake  a  mission  to 
the  Cherokee.  Again  in  1726  Fitch  and  Chicken  were  ap¬ 
pointed.58  During  the  winter  of  1727-1728  Charlesworth 
Glover,  as  agent  to  the  Creeks,  negotiated  so  successfully  that 
it  was  possible  to  shelve  the  Creek  punitive  expedition.  Gov¬ 
ernor  Johnson  in  1731  recommended  a  reward  to  Glover  for 
his  ‘constant  readiness  and  good  services’  for  several  years 
past.59  Until  1731  the  agents  were  appointed  by  special  action 

58  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  230,  231,  328;  C.O.  5:412. 

57  See  below,  pp.  259,  265,  267;  also,  JCHA,  February  11,  1723 ;  May  11, 
1725;  JC,  November  26,  1725. 

68  JC,  March  17,  1724.  JCHA,  1725,  1726,  passim.  The  journals  of  Fitch 
and  Chicken  in  1725  are  printed  in  Mereness  (ed.),  Travels,  pp.  97-212.  A 
report  in  JCHA,  March  25,  1736,  indicates  that  in  1727  Fitch  received  an 
allowance  of  £1112  for  his  journey  to  the  Creeks,  and  Chicken  £780  for  his 
special  mission. 

59  See  below,  pp.  271-2.  Glover’s  journal  is  in  C.O.  5  :397. 


202 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


of  the  assembly  in  each  case,  the  Commons  House  usually  dic¬ 
tating  the  person.  The  Indian  act  of  that  year  for  the  first 
time  authorized  the  appointment  of  a  permanent  Creek  agent 
at  £80  a  month,  to  exercise  all  of  the  powers  of  a  commis¬ 
sioner  except  the  granting  of  licenses.60 

Indian  diplomacy  centred  in  the  Indian  trade,  and  the  chief 
problem  of  the  trade  was  the  conduct  of  the  individual  Indian 
trader.  With  the  return  to  individual  enterprise  the  old  problem 
of  regulation  had  reappeared,  underscored  by  the  terrible  ex¬ 
periences  of  1715.  In  the  decade  before  the  establishment  of 
Georgia  seven  statutes  were  passed  in  South  Carolina,  most  of 
them  creating  new  restrictions.  The  culmination  of  this  tend¬ 
ency  was  the  act  of  1731,  which  really  established  an  Indian 
trading  code  for  the  whole  southern  frontier,  since  the  Georgia 
act  of  1735  was  closely  patterned  upon  it.61 

The  essence  of  the  system,  as  in  1707,  was  the  requirement 
of  licenses  and  the  subjection  of  the  traders  to  the  instructions 
of  the  Indian  administration.  Licenses  were  usually  renewable 
once  a  year,  but  in  the  case  of  the  Chickasaw  traders  at  inter¬ 
vals  of  eighteen  months.  They  were  issued  by  the  secretary 
under  the  authority  of  the  commissioner,  and  the  personal  ap¬ 
pearance  of  the  principal  trader  in  Charles  Town  was  required. 
The  fees  advanced  from  £23  in  1721  to  £30  in  1724  and  1731. 
Bonds  for  good  conduct  were  also  required.62  Many  evils  arose 
from  the  cut-throat  competition  between  wandering  traders ;  in 
1724  each  trader  was  required  to  declare  to  which  nation  he 
intended  to  go,  and  was  so  restricted  in  his  license.63  In  1731 
there  was  a  further  restriction  to  specified  towns  in  each  tribe, 
except  among  the  Chickasaw.  The  commissioner  was  em¬ 
powered  to  allot  the  towns  according  to  their  size ;  only  in  the 
larger  towns  was  more  than  one  licensed  trader  permitted  to 
reside.64  In  a  further  effort  ‘to  encourage  persons  of  interest 
and  reputation  to  trade  amongst  the  Indians  and  to  make  quick 
sales  and  returns,’  each  principal  trader  was  allowed  to  insert 
in  his  license  the  names  of  two  white  assistants.  For  additional 

60  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  334. 

61  Colotiial  Records  of  Georgia,  I.  31-42. 

62  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  90  f.,  143  f.,  230,  330;  C.O.  5:412. 

63  Cooper,  Statutes,  III.  230. 

M  Ibid.,  pp.  331  f. 


DEFENSE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 


203 


servants  separate  licenses  were  required.65  The  trader  must  give 
bond  for  the  conduct  of  his  servants,  and  he  was  forbidden  to 
discharge  them  in  the  Indian  country.  The  employment  of 
slaves  or  of  free  negroes  was  strictly  forbidden.  Penalties  were 
imposed  for  such  offenses  as  the  refusal  to  obey  instructions 
or  warrants,  trading  without  license,  trusting  Indians,  trading 
with  enemy  tribes  or  the  subjects  of  Spain  or  France.  These 
might  be  fines,  forfeiture  of  license,  or  both.  To  enforce  these 
rules  the  commissioner  was  given  judicial  powers,  and  could 
issue  warrants  against  offenders;  the  commanders  of  the  fron¬ 
tier  posts  might  also  be  called  upon  to  send  detachments  to 
arrest  recalcitrants.66  By  such  provisions  of  the  code  the  trade 
was  kept  fairly  free  from  danger,  though  never  free  from 
scandal. 

By  1732  the  South  Carolina  regulatory  system  was  proba¬ 
bly  as  well  planned  and  as  efficiently  enforced  as  any  such  sys¬ 
tem  could  have  been  under  colonial  conditions,  and  in  view  of 
the  vast  extent  of  the  Carolina  Indian  country.  No  great  ad¬ 
vance  could  be  made  until  provincial  control  of  Indian  affairs 
gave  way  to  imperial  control,  a  reform  which  was  not  actually 
begun  for  more  than  a  score  of  years.  But  as  early  as  1720  the 
necessity  of  an  imperial  policy  in  these  matters  had  begun  to 
appear.  To  this  end  Sir  William  Keith’s  famous  ‘Report  on 
the  Progress  of  the  French  Nation,’  submitted  to  the  Board 
of  Trade  in  1719,  proposed  ‘a  compleat  body  of  Instructions’ 
to  ‘all  the  Governours  on  this  Continent,’  to  establish  complete 
freedom  of  trade  from  one  colony  to  another.  Once  the  Indian 
trade  was  regarded  as  an  imperial  interest,  ‘we  should  not  have 
the  traders  of  New  York  jealous  and  uneasie  at  the  profits 
gained  by  the  Traders  of  Virginia,  nor  those  again  of  the  Im¬ 
provements  which  may  possibly  be  made  in  Carolina,  but  every 
Colony  would  find  a  solid  and  certain  Advantage  by  an  Union 
among  them  according  to  their  situation  Power  and  Ability  to 
advance  their  trading  Settlements  Westward.’67  In  1720,  at  the 
suggestion  of  John  Barnwell  and  Francis  Nicholson,  the  Board 
of  Trade  advised  the  new  royal  governor  to  confer  with  the 
governor  of  Virginia  ‘for  promoting,  settling,  and  inlarging 

65  Ibid.,  pp.  230,  331. 

Ibid.,  pp.  90-2,  141-3,  230  f.,  329-32. 

67  C.O.  S  :1265,  Q  179. 


204 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


the  Indian  Trade,  .  .  .  and  to  settle  matters  on  such  a  foot, 
that  neither  of  these  Colonies  should  have  reason  to  complain 
of  the  other.’68  The  consultations  thus  authorized  were  con¬ 
tinued,  by  correspondence,  as  late  as  1722,  and  drew  in  also 
the  governor  of  North  Carolina.  They  marked  the  first  halting 
steps  towards  the  development  of  an  imperial  policy  in  the 
regulation  of  the  southern  Indian  trade.69 

Little,  however,  was  actually  accomplished  at  the  time.  One 
of  Barnwell’s  suggestions  had  been  that  the  assemblies  of 
Virginia  and  South  Carolina  pass  equitable  and  complementary 
laws  regulating  trade.  Yet  so  strong  were  the  old  jealousies 
that  Spotswood  found  matter  for  complaint  in  the  South 
Carolina  Indian  act  of  1721.  To  be  sure,  the  Virginians  were 
not  mentioned  therein,  but  the  Virginia  agent  argued  that  the 
requirement  of  licenses  to  be  taken  out  at  Charles  Town  was 
principally  aimed  at  them.  Richard  West,  counsel  of  the  Board, 
saw  no  essential  difference  from  the  act  of  1711,  previously 
disallowed,  and  declared  that  the  new  act  was  ‘not  proper  to 
be  passed  into  law.’  He  went  out  of  his  way  to  reveal  his 
ignorance  of  the  American  frontier  when  he  observed  that  the 
hardships  imposed  on  the  Carolina  traders  themselves  were 
‘very  grievous,  and  the  powers  granted  to  the  commissioners 
.  .  .  very  arbitrary.’  In  rebuttal  the  Carolina  agent  asserted  that 
the  whole  scope  of  the  law  was  to  keep  the  Carolina  traders 
‘in  a  due  Oeconomy,’  and  denied  that  there  was  any  intent  to 
exclude  the  Virginia  traders.  To  seize  their  goods  or  otherwise 
submit  them  to  the  law  would  be  in  effect,  he  said,  a  declaration 
of  war  between  the  provinces — an  interesting  commentary  on 
the  relations  which  had  actually  existed  from  1707  to  17 12. 70 
This  time  the  Board  paid  no  heed  to  the  Virginian  complaints. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  no  longer  necessary  for  the  Caro¬ 
linians  to  stretch  the  legitimate  function  of  regulation  for  the 
illegitimate  purpose  of  excluding  the  Virginians.  Despite  Spots- 
wood’s  activities,  the  competition  from  the  Chesapeake  colony 
had  become  practically  negligible.  In  1725  George  Chicken 
wrote  from  the  Cherokees  that  ‘the  Virginia  traders  ...  I  am 

“CO.  5:358,  A  11;  400,  p.  132. 

69  JCHA,  January  26,  February  1,  1721/2.  See  also  C.O.  5  :401,  p.  45. 

10 George  Chalmers  (comp.),  Opinions  of  Eminent  Lawyers,  II.  300-6. 
JC,  December  4,  1722.  C.O.  5:371,  H  56. 


DEFENSE  AND  RECONSTRUCTION^  205 

certain  can  do  no  prejudice  to  ours  in  the  Way  of  Trade  there 
not  being  above  two  or  three  of  them  and  their  goods  no  ways 
Suitable  or  Comparable  to  ours.’71  The  Virginians  continued 
to  enjoy  a  small  share  of  the  Catawba  and  Cherokee  trade,  but 
the  real  rivals  of  the  Carolinians,  in  the  next  generation,  were 
the  colonists  of  Georgia.  Between  South  Carolina  and  Georgia 
quite  as  bitter  a  conflict  was  to  be  waged,  with  resort,  again,  to 
the  Board  of  Trade  and  Privy  Council.  But  now  the  tables 
were  turned,  and  the  Carolinians  found  themselves  in  the 
former  situation  of  the  Virginia  traders,  compelled  to  defend 
the  trade  which  they  had  long  enjoyed  against  the  monopolistic 
designs  of  their  new  neighbors. 

71 JC,  November  2,  1725  (Chicken’s  journal  for  August  30). 


CHAPTER  IX 

Beginnings  of  British  Western  Policy,  1715-1721 

The  Yamasee  War  began  a  new  era  in  British  frontier 
policy  as  well  as  in  the  border  history  of  the  South.  The  threat¬ 
ened  ruin  of  South  Carolina  for  the  first  time  definitely  focussed 
the  attention  of  the  colonial  authorities  upon  the  southern  fron¬ 
tier.  The  Indian  war  and  its  aftermath  served  also  to  arouse 
the  English  as  never  before  to  the  encroachments  of  the  French 
west  of  the  Appalachians.  Persistently  exploited  by  the  Caro¬ 
linians  in  their  appeals  at  home,  these  apprehensions  led  in  the 
next  five  or  six  years  to  the  establishment  of  royal  government 
in  Carolina  and  to  the  assertion  by  the  Board  of  Trade  of  the 
first  clearly  formulated  British  program  for  challenging  the 
progress  of  the  French  in  the  West. 

In  the  spring  and  summer  of  1715  something  like  panic 
spread  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and  even  to  England.  The 
Board  of  Trade  was  warned  by  William  Byrd  that  if  the 
Cherokee  joined  the  conspiracy,  the  destruction  of  Carolina 
could  not  be  prevented.1  From  New  York  Colonel  Heathcote 
communicated  to  Lord  Townshend  his  dread  of  a  general 
Indian  rising,  with  French  support,  against  all  of  the  English 
colonies.2  Carolina,  wrote  Cotton  Mather,  in  characteristic  vein, 
‘is  newly  destroy’d  by  the  dreadful  Judgments  of  God,  for 
which  an  uncommon  measure  of  Iniquities  had  ripened  it.’  It 
was  much  to  be  feared,  he  added,  ‘that  the  Combination  of  the 
Indians  is  more  general,  than  meerly  for  the  Destruction  of 
Carolina;  and  under  a  French  and  Spanish  Instigation.  And 
that  some  other  Colonies,  which,  alas,  are  too  obnoxious,  may 
shortly  suffer  grievous  Depredations  from  them.’3  Craven  and 
Spotswood  pictured  the  French  occupying  Carolina  on  the  heels 
of  the  barbarians.4  Soon  there  arrived  in  England  from  South 
Carolina  a  series  of  addresses  and  petitions  appealing  for  aid 
of  arms  and  men  and  also  for  the  establishment  of  direct  royal 
control. 

1  JBT,  July  IS,  1715. 

2  Docs.  rel.  Col  Hist.  N.  Y„  V.  43 3. 

3  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  seventh  series,  VIII.  pp.  328  f. 

4  Spotswood,  Letters,  II.  122;  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  179. 

[206] 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


207 


At  the  first  report  of  the  crisis,  the  Board  of  Trade  was 
directed  by  Secretary  Stanhope,  on  July  7,  to  report  on  the 
question  of  assistance.5  There  followed  consultation  with  the 
Secretaries,  and  the  Cabinet,  eager  scanning  of  the  letters  from 
America,  questioning  of  planters  and  merchants,  and  pointed 
interrogation  of  the  Lords  Proprietors.6  Though  the  latter  had 
themselves  appealed  to  the  Board  for  aid,  they  pleaded  the 
minority  of  two  of  their  number  as  a  reason  for  not  pledging 
their  charter  as  security.7  The  Board  now  proposed  an  outright 
surrender,  but  failed  to  arrive  at  terms.  On  July  19  they  re¬ 
ported  to  Stanhope  that  the  Proprietors  were  unable  ‘or  at  least 
not  inclin’d,  at  their  own  Charges,  either  to  send  the  necessary 
Succours  upon  this  Exigency,  or  to  support  that  province  under 
the  like  for  the  future.’  The  results  of  proprietary  neglect  in 
the  Bahamas  were  recalled,  and  the  value  of  South  Carolina  set 
forth,  as  a  producer  of  rice,  naval  stores,  and  skins,  and  also 
as  a  frontier.  ‘The  situation  of  Carolina,’  they  declared,  ‘makes 
it  a  Frontier,  as  well  against  the  French  and  Spaniards,  as 
against  numerous  Nations  of  Indians,  which  last,  at  the  Insti¬ 
gation  of  the  former,  seem  to  have  enter’d  into  a  General 
Confederacy  against  all  our  other  Plantations  on  the  Continent.’ 
Therefore  they  raised  the  question  whether  it  was  not  proper 
for  his  Majesty  ‘to  take  the  preservation  of  so  valuable  a 
province  upon  him  at  this  Juncture.’8 

The  attack  upon  the  Lords  Proprietors  was  pressed  both 
by  the  Board  and  by  the  Carolina  agent.  It  soon  shifted  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  broadened  out  into  a  general  assault 
upon  the  colonial  charters.  August  2,  1715,  a  petition  of  the 
Carolina  agent  and  several  merchants  trading  to  that  province 
was  presented.  They  recited  the  plight  of  the  colony,  complained 
of  French  encroachments,  and  prayed  for  immediate  relief. 
August  10,  the  committee,  which  included  members  of  the 
Board  of  Trade  and  merchants,  reported  substantially  in  the 

5  Ibid.,  p.  193. 

6JBT,  July  8,  13,  14,  15,  1715  (printed  in  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  193-6). 
See  also  McCrady,  South  Carolina  under  the  Prop.  Gov.,  pp.  538  IT.,  and 
L.  M.  Kellogg,  ‘The  American  Colonial  Charter,’  in  Am.  Hist.  Assoc.  Rep. 
(1903),  1.309. 

7  JBT,  July  13,  1715 ;  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  188. 

8  C.O.  5  :383,  no.  1;  Rivers,  Sketch  (1856),  pp.  271-4.  See  also  memorial 
of  Kettleby  and  the  merchants,  July  18,  1715,  in  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  196-9. 


208 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


terms  of  the  Board’s  earlier  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  State, 
whereupon  the  House  ordered  an  address  to  the  Crown  for  the 
relief  of  Carolina.  At  the  same  time  leave  was  given  to  bring 
in  a  bill  ‘for  the  better  Regulation  of  the  Charter  and  Pro¬ 
prietary  Governments  in  America.’  Though  this  bill  advanced 
to  a  second  reading,  it  soon  met  formidable  opposition.  Peti¬ 
tions  were  offered  by  Baltimore  and  Penn,  by  the  agents  of 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Island,  and  by  the 
guardians  of  Lord  Craven  and  the  Duke  of  Beaufort.  These 
special  interests,  marshalled  by  Lord  Carteret,  were  reinforced 
by  the  Whig  antipathy  to  encroachments  upon  vested  rights. 
Confronted  by  so  formidable  an  opposition  the  legislative  at¬ 
tack  upon  the  charters  in  1715  broke  down.9 

Henceforth  the  strategy  of  the  dominant  anti-proprietary 
party  in  the  province  was  to  exploit  to  the  utmost  the  perils  of 
their  frontier  situation  and  the  inefficiency  of  the  Proprietary 
regime.  No  doubt  they  colored  their  reports  of  the  Indian  revolt 
and  of  the  French  peril ;  on  the  other  hand  the  Proprietors  and 
their  servants  constantly  minimized  these  dangers.10 

In  London  the  campaign  was  vigorously  pressed  by  the 
assembly’s  new  agents,  Joseph  Boone  and  Richard  Berresford. 
They  bombarded  the  Board  and  the  Secretary  of  State  with 
formal  addresses  from  the  assembly,  with  extracts  from  Ameri¬ 
can  letters,  and  with  their  own  memorials.  Thus  in  June,  1716, 
they  submitted  a  sheaf  of  papers,11  including  a  list  of  exports 
and  imports  for  a  year  before  the  rising,  to  emphasize  the 
mercantilist  interest  in  preserving  the  colony.  Again  and  again 
they  stressed  the  Proprietors’  neglect  in  face  of  the  new  French 
program  of  encirclement  from  Canada  to  Louisiana.  South 
Carolina,  they  asserted,  was  ‘a  Barrier  and  might  be  made  a 
Bulwark  to  all  his  Majesties  Collonys  on  the  South  West  Part 

8  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  August  2,  10,  13,  15,  16,  17,  19, 
1715;  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  50,  52;  Political  State  of  Great  Britain,  X.  170  f. 
(August,  1715)  ;  Kellogg,  in  Am.  Hist.  Assoc.  Rep.  (1903),  I.  310  f. ;  H.  L. 
Osgood,  Am.  Col.  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  II.  294. 

10  Thus  in  July,  1716,  the  Proprietors  told  the  Board  of  Trade  that  the 
Yamasee  and  Creek  Indians  were  almost  entirely  destroyed  (C.O.  5:1265, 
Q  118),  but  a  few  months  later  the  Commons  House  in  an  address  asserted 
that  only  a  miracle  or  royal  intervention  could  stave  off  ruin  (C.O.  5  :387, 
f.  8  i).  See  also  JCHA,  April  18,  1716;  JBT,  June  28,  1716;  C.O.  5:290, 
p.  92 

11  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  74,  75,  76,  77;  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  229-33. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


209 


of  the  Continent  against  the  French,  Spaniards  and  Indians.’ 
Forts  in  the  Bahamas  and  at  Port  Royal  were  proposed  to  con¬ 
trol  the  shipping  route  from  the  Gulf,  and  others  ‘towards 
Mobile  on  the  borders  of  our  Frontiers.’  In  December,  1717, 
the  Board  of  Trade  received  from  Berresford  a  memorial  re¬ 
lating  to  ‘the  Designs  of  the  French  to  Extend  their  Settlements 
from  Canada  to  Mississippi  behind  the  British  Plantations.’ 
This  paper  made  a  strong  impression,  and  led  to  inquiries  of 
colonial  governors  which  produced  in  the  next  two  years  the 
confirmatory  warnings  of  Spotswood  and  Keith.  Berresford 
denounced  the  Crozat  grant  as  ‘a  direct  Encroachment  on  the 
patent  from  our  Crown  to  the  Proprietors  of  Carolina.’  He 
described  the  new  Western  Company  as  an  even  greater  menace. 
The  French  had  already  imperilled  the  Iroquois  alliance,  and 
now  threatened  to  fall  with  their  Indians  upon  the  Cherokee. 
If  they  should  succeed,  he  predicted,  ‘We  shall  not  only  lose  all 
our  Commerce  with  the  Natives,  which  will  Sink  our  Trade 
but  be  evidently  expos’d  to  be  drove  out  of  the  Continent  by  the 
French  and  their  Numerous  Allies ;  and  what  a  Loss  as  well  as 
Disgrace  this  will  be  to  England  ’tis  not  easy  to  be  conceiv’d 
and  far  less  to  be  express’d.’12 

These  clamors  of  the  French  peril  were  accompanied  by 
repeated  overtures  for  royal  government  in  Carolina.  While 
the  House  of  Commons  bill  of  1715  was  expiring  in  committee, 
in  South  Carolina  the  Commons  House  of  Assembly  was  pre¬ 
paring  another  address  to  the  King,  praying  ‘that  this  once 
Flourishing  Province  may  be  absolutely  under  your  Majesties 
care  and  Government.’  In  March,  1716,  and  again  in  November, 
the  plea  was  renewed.13  Finally,  in  1717,  the  agents,  who  mean¬ 
time  had  thanked  the  Board  of  Trade  for  its  previous  efforts, 
again  carried  to  Parliament  the  case  of  South  Carolina,  ‘the 
only  Southern  Frontier  of  all  British  America,  both  to  the 
French  and  the  Spaniards.’  But  this  time  the  friends  of  the 
chartered  governments  prevented  even  a  reference  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  to  committee.14 

“C.O.  323:7,  K  116. 

I3C.O.  5:382,  ff.  14,  19;  1265,  Q  71,  72,  73;  387,  f.  12,  enclosure;  JCHA, 
April  17,  1716. 

14  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  117,  broadside,  ‘The  case  of  the  colony  of  South-Caro- 
lina  in  America :  humbly  offered  to  the  consideration  of  both  houses  of 
Parliament.’  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  May  22,  1717. 


210 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


While  the  Proprietors  were  under  attack,  their  failure  as 
wardens  of  the  southern  marches  the  chief  count  against  them, 
there  was  developed  a  plan — the  best  remembered  of  the  pre- 
Georgia  schemes — for  solving  the  problem  of  southern  border 
defense  quite  in  the  feudal  spirit  of  their  regime.  The  Mar- 
gravate  of  Azilia  was  designed  to  occupy  precisely  the  region 
which  fifteen  years  later  became  Georgia.  Otherwise  it  has 
seemed  chiefly  remarkable  as  involving  a  degree  of  sub-in- 
feudation  unique  among  English  colonial  projects,15  and  for 
its  singular  plan  of  settlement. 

The  projector  was  a  Scotch  baronet,  Sir  Robert  Montgom¬ 
ery  of  Skelmorly  (1680-1731).  His  was  a  family  interest  in 
colonization.  He  claimed  a  Knight  of  Nova  Scotia  among  his 
ancestors ;  his  father,  moreover,  had  been  a  backer  of  Lord 
Cardross,  and  the  charming  descriptions  of  Carolina  which  he 
had  heard  in  his  youth  inspired  him,  he  wrote,  with  a  particular 
affection  for  that  part  of  America.16  Among  his  associates  were 
Amos  Kettleby,  discharged  as  agent  by  the  South  Carolina 
assembly  in  November,  1716  ;17  and  the  poet-projector,  Aaron 
Hill.18  Hill’s  pen,  perhaps,  produced  the  flamboyant  descrip¬ 
tions  of  ‘our  future  Eden,’  which  set  a  new  record  for  exagger¬ 
ation  in  colonial  promotion  literature.  The  very  name  of  the 
colony  was  eloquent  of  the  confused  utopianism  and  decadent 
feudalism  which  inspired  the  scheme. 

In  June,  1717,  Montgomery  and  Kettleby  presented  their 
proposals,  to  which  the  Proprietors  readily  agreed,  anticipating 
quit-rents  and  an  easy  solution  of  the  vexing  problem  of  de¬ 
fense.  Details  were  negotiated  by  Kettleby  and  the  Proprietary 
secretary,  Shelton,  and  on  July  11,  1717,  the  deeds  of  lease  and 
release  were  executed.19  For  a  penny  quit-rent  for  each  acre 
occupied,  the  Proprietors  conveyed  to  Montgomery  and  his 
heirs  and  assigns  ‘all  that  Tract  of  Land  which  lies  between  the 
Rivers  Altamaha  and  Savanna.’  Farther  southward,  too,  Mont- 

15  Professor  C.  M.  Andrews  has  characterized  this  project  as  an  attempt 
to  establish  ‘the  most  remarkable  feudal  estate  within  the  colonial  area’ 
(Introduction  to  B.  W.  Bond,  Quit  Rent  System,  p.  20). 

16  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  XXXVIII,  321f. ;  Montgomery, 
Discourse  (1717)  ;  Insh,  Scottish  Colonial  Schemes,  p.  203. 

17  C.O.  5 :387,  f.  8.  Kettleby  had  served  as  agent  since  1712. 

18  Dorothy  Brewster,  Aaron  Hill:  Poet,  Dramatist,  Projector,  1913,  pp. 
50-9;  Aaron  Hill,  Works,  1753,  II.  187-96. 

“C.O.  5:1265,  Q  144,  145(1)  ;  292,  pp.  93,  94. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


211 


gomery  might  make  settlements,  but  beyond  the  Altamaha  the 
Proprietors  reserved  the  right  to  grant  unoccupied  lands.  Profit¬ 
ing  by  the  Cardross  episode,  or,  more  probably,  by  recent  quar¬ 
rels  between  Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  they  withheld  from 
Montgomery  the  right  to  tax  or  in  any  way  obstruct  the  navi¬ 
gation  of  the  Azilian  rivers  by  inhabitants  of  North  or  South 
Carolina,  or  to  interfere  with  ‘their  free  Commerce  and  Trade 
with  the  Indian  Nations,  either  within,  or  to  the  Southward  of 
the  Margravate.’  Moreover,  if  Montgomery  should  fail  to  effect 
a  settlement  within  three  years  the  Proprietors  might  repossess 
themselves  of  the  grant. 

Within  a  few  weeks  Montgomery  published  his  well-known 
Discourse  concerning  the  design’d  Establishment  of  a  New 
Colony  to  the  South  of  Carolina,  in  the  most  delightful  Coun¬ 
try  of  the  Universe.20  ‘Paradise  with  all  her  Virgin  beau¬ 
ties,’  declared  the  exuberant  pamphleteer,  ‘may  be  modestly 
suppos’d  at  most  but  equal  to  its  Native  Excellencies.’  He  un¬ 
folded  a  highly  artificial  plan  for  planting  compact  fortified 
township  settlements  in  Azilia,  with  servants  to  till  the  pro¬ 
prietors’  lands  and  a  class  of  gentlemen-tenants.  An  illustrative 
chart  showed  a  great  tract,  four-square  and  surrounded  by 
fortifications.  Within  were  concentric  zones  parcelled  among 
the  proprietors  and  the  resident  gentry,  or  set  aside  for  the  uses 
of  a  park  and  a  town.  At  the  precise  centre  stood  the  palace  of 
the  Margrave.  Hopefully  Montgomery  listed  the  many  valuable 
exotic  commodities,  olives,  wine,  raisins,  almonds,  etc.,  which 
Azilia,  like  all  colonies  projected  in  the  South,  was  expected  to 
produce.  Less  was  said,  naturally,  of  the  buffer  character  of  the 
proposed  colony  in  an  advertisement  intended  to  attract  inves¬ 
tors.  But  Montgomery  was  aware  of  Cardross’s  disaster,  and 
of  recent  events  in  Carolina.  Azilia,  he  hoped,  might  not  only 
'resist  a  Storm  Herself,  but  .  .  .  also  spread  her  Wings  to  a 
Capacity  of  shadowing  others  :  a  British  Colony,  shou’d,  like  the 
Roman,  carry  with  it  always  something  of  the  Mother’s  Glory.’ 

20  A  note  in  the  first  issue  announced  that  subscriptions  would  be  taken 
at  the  Carolina  Coffee  House,  Birchin  Lane,  after  August  1.  In  a  later  issue 
(copy  in  John  Carter  Brown  Library),  a  revised  plan  was  announced: 
purchasers  would  pay  the  first  half  of  their  subscriptions  not  to  Mont¬ 
gomery  but  to  Messrs.  Turner,  Caswell,  and  Co.,  at  the  Sword  Blade  office, 
to  be  held  until  completed  or  until  trustees  were  chosen  by  the  subscribers. 
These  trustees  would  make  all  expenditures  and  hold  all  supplies  prior  to 
embarkation.  Books  would  be  opened  September  2. 


212 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


So  far  as  it  was  in  their  power  the  Proprietors  had  agreed 
that  Azilia  should  be  a  province  distinct  from  Carolina.  But 
royal  approval  was  necessary  if  Montgomery  was  to  become, 
as  he  hoped,  governor  for  life.  In  July,  1717,  the  Proprietors 
commended  the  scheme  to  the  Privy  Council.21  The  appeals  to 
the  colonial  authorities  placed  great  emphasis  upon  Azilia’s 
strategic  value,  in  Anglo-French  even  more  than  in  Anglo- 
Spanish  rivalry.  It  was  pointed  out  by  Montgomery,  or  by  his 
associate,  the  poet-projector  Hill,  in  terms  which  strikingly 
recall  the  Nairne  memorial  of  1707,  that  under  cover  of  this 
grant,  ‘a  settlement  may  unexpectedly,  and  without  noise,  be 
made  somewhere  on  the  river  of  Apalachia.’  Seated  upon  the 
Gulf,  the  English  would  then  be  in  a  position  to  watch  the 
designs  of  the  French,  ‘and  be  a  Check  to  their  Ambition.’22 

Montgomery  in  1718  insisted  that  he  had  in  prospect  suffi¬ 
cient  subscriptions  to  carry  over  the  first  colony  of  five  or  six 
hundred  settlers.  Already  aroused  to  the  French  danger  in  the 
West  by  the  Carolinians  and  by  Spotswood  of  Virginia,  whose 
well-known  warnings  were  largely  an  echo  of  the  clamors  from 
South  Carolina,  the  Board  was  favorably  disposed  towards  a 
new  barrier  colony,  which  was  also  endorsed  to  them  in  general 
terms  by  Colonel  Blakiston  and  the  colonial  merchant,  Mica- 
jah  Perry.  But  in  line  with  their  fixed  policy,  and  with  the 
sceptical  opinion  of  Attorney-General  Northey,  the  Lords  of 
Trade  first  proposed  that  the  Carolina  Proprietors  surrender 
their  powers  of  government  in  the  new  province.23 

With  this  qualified  approval  by  the  Board  the  matter  rested 
until  1720.  Meanwhile,  declared  Hill,  Montgomery’s  advertise¬ 
ments  meeting  with  less  success  than  expected,  ‘I  bought  his 
grant  of  him  with  a  firm  resolution,  to  pursue  the  design  by 
myself.’ 

No  gain-polluted  aim  inspire^ my  view, 

I  seek  not  office,  nor  reward  pursue. 

More  nobly  fir’d  my  thoughts  high  schemes  design, 

To  stretch  dominion,  and  make  empire  shine. 

21  C.O.  5  :1265,  Q  142;  JBT,  February  20,  1718. 

22  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  143.  Compare  Aaron  Hill’s  ‘Letter  to  Lord - ,’  n.d., 

in  Works,  1753,  II.  187-96. 

23  C.O.  5  : 1265,  Q  146;  383,  nos.  2,  2  i,  3  ;  JBT,  February  20,  25,  27,  March 
4,  5,  1717/18. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


213 


Thus  Hill  appealed  to  a  noble  lord  for  patronage.  At  the  mo¬ 
ment  he  was  seeking  to  set  up  a  lottery  in  Scotland  to  make 
good  the  dearth  of  subscriptions,24  for  Azilia  had  many  com¬ 
petitors  for  public  support  in  that  period  of  the  South  Sea 
excitement.  The  collapse  of  the  South  Sea  stock  turned  opinion 
strongly  against  all  projectors.  Transformed  into  a  ‘bubble,’ 
so  John  Barnwell  of  South  Carolina  charged,25  the  project  dis¬ 
appeared  with  the  ebbing  of  the  tide  of  speculation. 

It  left  only  a  name  on  contemporary  maps,26  and  several 
interesting  promotion  pamphlets.  Two  of  these,  of  1720,  adver¬ 
tised  the  modified  scheme  for  colonizing  St.  Catherine’s  and 
the  other  so-called  ‘Golden  Islands’  of  the  Azilian  coast.27  In¬ 
vestors  were  enticed  with  the  promise  not  merely  of  quit-rents 
from  military-industrial  colonies  like  those  proposed  in  1717, 
but  also  of  profits  from  a  monopoly  of  trade  with  Azilia; 
Preparations  were  described  for  a  first  settlement  at  St.  Cather¬ 
ine’s  with  a  stock  of  £25,000  already  in  hand.  From  the  Caro¬ 
lina  agents,  however,  the  revised  scheme  met  with  opposition. 
To  be  sure,  on  his  first  arrival  in  England  John  Barnwell  had 
written  to  Montgomery  commending  his  ‘worthy  Design  of 
planting  Azilia.’  This  letter,  with  its  stress  on  the  commercial 
and  strategic  value  of  the  colony,  and  its  prediction  that  the 
Indian  trade  would  centre  there,  was  conspicuously  displayed 
in  both  the  Golden  Islands  tracts.  But  by  September,  1720,  the 
situation  was  greatly  altered,  and  with  it  the  agent’s  attitude. 
The  results  of  the  revolution  of  1719  in  the  colony  had  now 
been  accepted  by  the  Crown.  A  provisional  royal  governor  was 
to  be  sent  out ;  and,  at  Barnwell’s  urging,  a  garrison  was  to  be 
established  at  the  mouth  of  the  Altamaha,  on  the  southern 
margin  of  Azilia.  Boone  and  Barnwell  accordingly  complained 
to  the  Board  of  Trade  that  Montgomery’s  advertisements  raised 
fears  of  a  conflict  between  the  royal  garrison  and  the  Golden 

24  Aaron  Hill,  Works,  1753,  II.  187-96;  and  Brewster,  Aaron  Hill,  p.  58. 
But  note  that  Montgomery  petitioned  for  a  lottery  in  1718  and  made  affi¬ 
davit  that  he  had  a  bona  fide  intention  to  make  a  settlement  (C.O.  5  :383, 
ff.  3,  4).  In  1720  Montgomery  was  again  connected  with  the  Golden  Islands 
scheme. 

23  Historical  MSS  Commission,  Eleventh  Report,  part  IV,  p.  256. 

26  See  Herman  Moll,  A  New  Map  of  the  North  Parts  of  America 
claimed  by  France,  1720;  and  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7. 

a  An  Account  ...  of  a  Design  (1720)  and  A  Description  of  the  Golden 
Islands  (1720). 


214 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Islands  colonists.  Declaring  that  no  powers  of  government 
claimed  from  the  Proprietors  could  interfere  with  his  Majesty’s 
authority,  the  Board  referred  the  complainants  to  the  Lords 
Justices.28  But  the  Azilia  ‘bubble’  had  already  burst.29 

In  the  affair  of  Azilia  the  Proprietors  had  shown  some 
appreciation  of  the  existence  of  a  frontier  problem  in  their 
vast  estate,  not  undivorced  from  hopes  of  revenue  in  quit-rents. 
Meanwhile  they  evaded  the  inquiries  of  the  Board  of  Trade 
regarding  more  tangible  aid  of  arms  and  money.30  But  it  was 
their  land  policy,  and  especially  the  affair  of  the  Yamasee  tract, 
that  most  strikingly  revealed  their  indifference  to  the  strategic 
needs  of  the  colony. 

By  an  act  of  1707,  approved  by  the  Proprietors,  a  reserva¬ 
tion  had  been  created  between  the  Combahee  and  Savannah 
Rivers  for  the  Yamasee  Indians.  Their  revolt  and  expulsion 
from  the  province  now  raised  the  question  of  the  disposition  of 
these  lands,  the  immediate  frontier,  towards  Florida,  of  the 
existing  settlements.  The  war  had  shown  the  disadvantages 
from  the  defense  standpoint  of  large  grants  only  partially  occu¬ 
pied  by  scattered  plantations  sparsely  settled  by  whites,  disad¬ 
vantages  which  were  particularly  obvious  in  this  border  land. 
Apparently  the  assembly  urged  a  new  policy.  In  February,  1716, 
the  proprietary  board,  rebuking  the  assembly’s  agent,  Joseph 
Boone,  for  his  ‘very  insolent  manner,’  nevertheless  declared  its 
intention  to  parcel  out  the  Yamasee  lands  in  holdings  of  not 
over  two  hundred  acres,  free  of  quit-rents  for  five  years,  for 
the  encouragement  of  actual  settlers.  This  pledge  was  recorded 
in  the  minutes,  and  shortly  repeated  in  a  letter  to  the  colony.31 

Thereupon  the  assembly  somewhat  rashly  passed  an  act  to 

28  JBT,  September  15,  1720. 

28  The  ghost  of  Azilia  occasionally  walked.  See  C.O.  5  :358,  A  48,  p.  131 ; 
362,  D  57 ;  290,  f.  260 ;  also  Percival,  Diary,  I.  398. 

30  On  the  controversy  over  proprietary  aid,  see  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  78,  Q  118, 
Q  121;  1293,  pp.  97,  98;  JCHA,  April  18,  25,  1716;  also,  McCrady,  S.  C. 
under  the  Prop.  Gov.,  pp.  571-2,  and  Osgood,  Ain.  Col.  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  II.  354.  Probably  the  donation  of  quit-rents  was  all  that  the  Pro¬ 
prietors  could  offer  in  their  situation.  In  November,  1718,  they  received  an 
address  of  the  governor  and  assembly  to  procure  from  the  Crown  a  station- 
ship  to  cruise  for  pirates,  and  ‘500  men  to  protect  them  against  the  En¬ 
croachment  of  the  French  Indians.’  The  appeal  for  the  ship  was  apparently 
pressed,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  the  Proprietors  interested  themselves 
in  the  plea  for  a  garrison  (C.O.  5:292,  Proprietors’  minutes  under  Novem¬ 
ber  28,  1718,  and  February  27,  1718/19). 

31  C.O.  5  :292,  pp.  84,  86 ;  290,  p.  92. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


215 


appropriate  the  ‘Indian  Land’  for  the  ‘publick  benefit  of  this 
Province.’32  To  encourage  newcomers  from  Great  Britain,  Ire¬ 
land,  or  from  other  colonies,  grants  were  offered  of  three  hun¬ 
dred  to  four  hundred  acres  on  condition  of  actual  settlement  and 
occupation  for  ten  months  in  the  year.  While  retaining  the  usual 
quit-rent  of  twelve  shillings  per  hundred  acres,  the  assembly 
imprudently  undertook  to  suspend  for  four  years  the  payment 
of  the  purchase  price  of  £3.  A  special  plea  was  made  to  the 
Proprietors  to  permit  this  concession  to  the  poverty  of  the  new 
settlers.  Other  acts  in  the  same  session  offered  bounties  for 
bringing  in  white  Protestant  servants,  and  placed  a  check  upon 
the  importation  of  blacks  from  Africa.  Together  these  measures 
represented  an  attempt  to  convert  the  southern  border  into  a 
region  with  a  predominant  white  population,  ready  to  defend 
the  province  in  an  emergency. 

The  publication  of  the  settlement  laws  in  England,  it  was 
said,  soon  attracted  some  five  hundred  Protestant  Irish  to  South 
Carolina.  Other  settlers,  old  Carolinians,  began  to  enter  the 
portion  of  the  tract,  Huspaw  Neck,  reserved  for  them.33  But 
this  hopeful  movement  to  repeople  the  ravaged  border  was 
abruptly  halted  by  the  Proprietors,  who,  in  July,  1718,  repealed 
these  acts  as  an  encroachment  upon  their  property.34  At  that 
time,  indeed,  the  Proprietors  made  a  wholesale  attack  upon 
provincial  legislation  assertive  of  the  powers  of  the  assembly. 
The  discriminatory  customs  act,  the  Indian-trading  act,  the 
law  establishing  elections  in  the  parishes,  and  the  act  of  1707 
for  the  election  of  the  public  receiver  by  the  assembly,  all  went 
by  the  board.  These  vetoes  clearly  proclaimed  the  intention  of 
the  Proprietors  to  recover  a  dominant  voice  in  the  government 
of  the  province.  The  assembly  was  ordered  dissolved,  and  new 
elections  held  under  the  old  law.  News  of  the  vetoes  came  to  the 
colonists  in  the  midst  of  their  bitter  quarrel  with  Chief  Justice 
Trott,  the  unpopular  representative  of  proprietary  prerogative. 
Trott  vigorously  defended  the  Proprietors  when  the  assembly 
presumed  to  question  their  right  of  veto.  Though  Francis 
Yonge  of  the  council  was  sent  to  England  to  persuade  the 

32  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  II.  641-6. 

33  C.O.  5  :382,  f.  20. 

34  C.O.  5:292,  p.  98;  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  30  f. 


216 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Proprietors  to  give  way,  they  were  inflexible.  Reluctantly,  Gov¬ 
ernor  Johnson  bowed  to  their  will.35 

Meanwhile,  whatever  the  justification  of  the  vetoes,  the 
Proprietors’  proceedings  in  the  matter  of  the  Yamasee  tract 
gave  culminating  evidence  of  bad  faith.  In  February,  1718,  they 
had  ordered  that  a  copy  of  their  resolution  ‘and  agreement’  re¬ 
lating  to  the  Yamasee  lands  should  be  sent  to  the  colony.30  In 
July,  1718,  following  the  vetoes,  and  in  answer  to  a  ‘manifesto’ 
of  the  governor  and  council,  the  order  of  March  3,  1716,  was 
again  transmitted,  with  the  strictest  injunctions  for  its  enforce¬ 
ment.37  The  tracts  taken  up  by  newcomers  were,  it  appears, 
reduced  to  the  size  required  by  the  order,38  for  the  Proprietors 
were  committed  even  more  emphatically  than  the  assembly  to  a 
policy  of  small  holdings  along  the  frontier.  Already,  however, 
the  Board  had  empowered  Mr.  Bertie  to  act  upon  a  petition 
from  one  Hodgson  that  his  land-grant  of  five  thousand  acres 
be  run  out  in  the  old  Yamasee  settlement.  In  September  further 
sales  of  land  by  agents  were  forbidden  without  the  previous 
consent  of  the  Proprietors.  And  in  November,  1718,  the  pro¬ 
prietary  pledge  was  definitely  dishonored.  It  was  then  resolved 
that  in  a  new  distribution  of  baronies  among  the  Proprietors, 
half  of  each  grant  might  be  taken  up,  at  the  individual  Pro¬ 
prietor’s  option,  in  the  Yamasee  Land.  In  February,  1719,  six¬ 
teen  baronies  of  12,000  acres  each  were  ordered  surveyed  for 
the  eight  Proprietors,  and  another  barony  for  their  secretary.39 

At  the  time,  apparently,  the  Proprietors  did  not  trouble  to 
justify  their  action.  In  1728,  however,  they  insisted  that  the 
method  was  adopted  for  the  ‘better  Peopling  [of]  the  Province 
by  engaging  the  Proprietors  separately  to  cultivate  and  improve 
their  own  Lands.’40  But  the  history  of  baronies  and  of  other 
large  grants  surely  belied  this  assertion.  In  1720,  when  the 
colonists  were  justifying  their  revolution,  they  emphasized  this 
breach  of  faith  as  a  principal  article  in  their  case.  The  order, 
they  declared,  was  received  with  indignation  in  the  province ; 

35  See  Rivers,  Sketch,  chapter  x,  and  Osgood,  Aw.  Col.  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  II.  351-8  for  narratives  of  the  crisis. 

36  C.O.  5 :292,  p.  95. 

3,C.O.  5:290,  p.  118;  292,  p.  99. 

38  C.O.  5  :382,  f.  20. 

39  C.O.  5:292,  pp.  88,  103,  104,  108,  110,  114,  115,  119;  290,  p.  140. 

40  C.O.  5:290,  p.  261. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


217 


the  Proprietors  had  appropriated  for  themselves  more  land  than 
the  Yamasee  settlement  had  ever  been  accounted  to  contain. 
Even  bona  fide  settlers  who  had  paid  their  purchase  money  to 
the  receiver  general,  it  was  charged,  were  refused  confirmation 
of  their  titles.  The  old  settlers  who  had  returned  to  the  exposed 
plantations  expecting  reinforcements,  again  deserted.41  In  Sep¬ 
tember,  1719,  the  reactionary  land  policy  of  the  lords  of  the 
soil  was  capped  by  the  closing  of  the  land  office,  on  the  ground 
of  excessive  grants,  provincial  encroachments,  and  disorders  in 
the  collection  of  quit-rents.42  This  action  was  taken  before  and 
not,  as  the  Proprietors  later  asserted,  after  the  revolution.43 

By  the  Proprietors  the  revolt  against  their  rule  in  1719  was 
set  down  as  an  affair  of  the  quit-rents,  the  work  of  ‘some  needy 
Tumultous  persons.’44  Actually  the  revolution  was  engineered 
by  the  richest  and  most  influential  inhabitants,  and  represented 
the  culmination  of  a  conflict  almost  as  old  as  the  colony.  This 
conflict  had  taken  many  forms.  Since  1715  the  crux  of  the  con¬ 
troversy  had  been  the  failure  of  the  Proprietors  to  provide 
adequate  defense.  Hatred  of  the  proprietary  machine,  Trott 
and  Rhett  at  Charles  Town  and  Secretary  Shelton  at  home, 
added  fuel  to  the  fires ;  the  proprietary  vetoes  and  the  dissolu¬ 
tion  of  the  assembly  precipitated  the  crisis.  The  immediate 
occasion  was  furnished  by  rumors  of  an  impending  attack  by 
Spain,  now  at  war  with  France  and  England  to  upset  the  peace 
of  Utrecht.45 

Early  in  July,  1719,  the  Proprietors  had  received  intelli¬ 
gence  from  the  governor  and  council  that  six  hundred  Indians, 
headed  by  Spaniards,  were  ready  to  fall  on  the  southern  settle¬ 
ments.  This  emergency  they  decided  to  take  into  consideration 
at  ‘the  first  opportunity,’  but  only  four  meetings  of  the  board 
were  held  thereafter  in  1719,  or,  indeed,  until  1725,  and  the 
plight  of  the  colony  was  apparently  ignored.46  More  ominous 

41  C.O.  5  :382,  f.  20. 

42  C.O.  5  :290,  pp.  155-7. 

43  Ibid.,  p.  264. 

44  Ibid.,  p.  165. 

45  Francis  Yonge,  A  Narrative  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  People  of  South 
Carolina,  London,  1726,  reprinted  in  Carroll  ( ed. ) ,  Collections,  II.  141-92, 
was  the  only  detailed  contemporary  narrative,  and  the  chief  source  used 
by  Rivers,  McCrady,  and  others.  A  fair  statement  of  the  causes  of  the 
revolt  was  made  by  Johnson  to  the  Board  of  Trade  in  his  letter  of  Decem¬ 
ber  27,  1719  (C.O.  5:1265,  Q  200). 

40  C.O.  5  :292,  p.  128. 


218 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


were  preparations  known  to  be  going  forward  at  Havana  for 
an  attack  by  sea,  from  which  Charles  Town  was  saved  by  an 
unforeseen  turn  in  the  Franco-Spanish  conflict  in  the  Gulf. 
Meanwhile,  according  to  Yonge’s  narrative,  Governor  Johnson 
summoned  a  conference  of  councillors  and  members  of  the  new 
assembly  to  secure  a  subscription  for  fortifications.  But  the  con¬ 
ference  broke  up  in  a  quarrel  over  the  validity  of  the  vetoed 
acts.  When  Johnson  then  proceeded  to  call  out  the  militia,  the 
occasion  was  seized  by  the  anti-proprietary  leaders  to  create  an 
association  in  November,  1719,  to  set  up  his  Majesty’s  govern¬ 
ment.  This  movement  soon  spread  through  the  province.  In 
December  the  assembly  met  and  was  promptly  converted  into  a 
convention.  After  a  bloodless  conflict  with  Johnson,  who  rec¬ 
ognized  the  futility  of  resistance,  James  Moore  was  designated 
governor  in  the  name  of  the  King.  Moore  was  a  son  of  the  old 
frontier  magnate  and  conqueror  of  Apalache,  and  himself  a 
hero  of  the  Yamasee  War.  To  justify  these  extraordinary  pro¬ 
ceedings  a  long  paper  was  drawn  up,  later  printed  in  England 
as  A  True  State  of  the  Case  between  the  Inhabitants  of  South 
Carolina,  and  the  Lords  Proprietors  [1720].47  Therein  were 
set  forth  in  great  detail  all  of  the  accumulated  grievances  of  the 
planters.  But  special  stress  was  laid  upon  the  strategic  impor¬ 
tance  of  the  neglected  province,  on  the  necessity  of  ousting  the 
Spaniards  from  St.  Augustine,  and  on  the  failure  of  the  Pro¬ 
prietors,  in  face  of  frequent  warnings,  to  represent  the  en¬ 
croachments  of  the  French  in  the  West  in  such  light  as  to 
forestall  their  advance.  Since  the  building  of  Fort  Toulouse 
and  the  recent  capture  of  Pensacola,  it  was  declared,  the  French 
‘surround  this  settlement  from  the  mountains  to  the  Sea.’  Be¬ 
tween  Carolina  and  their  borders  lay  ‘an  open  level  Champion 
Country’  with  abundant  game  to  support  an  invading  army  in 
its  march  against  the  English  frontier.  Without  royal  protec¬ 
tion  in  the  next  war  ‘this  hopefull  Province  will  be  lost  to  the 
British  Empire  to  the  endangering  Virginia  and  other  your 
Majesties  Dominions  and  the  Irreparable  Loss  of  the  beneficial 
Trade  of  the  Same.’  To  support  these  somewhat  melodramatic 

"C.O.  5:1265,  Q  203.  Cf.  ibid.,  Q  199;  and  C.O.  5:382,  f.  20.  In  B.M. 
Add.  MSS  35909  (Hardwicke  papers,  DLXI),  ff.  9-18,  is  a  manuscript 
copy,  evidently  intended  for  use  as  a  brief  in  the  proceedings  against  the 
charter.  ‘Collo.  Barnwell  proves  this’  or  similar  comments  appear  frequently 
in  the  margin. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


219 


warnings  the  frontier  planter  and  Indian  fighter,  John  Barn¬ 
well,  was  sent  over  to  London  on  a  special  mission. 

The  revolutionary  regime  had  no  real  difficulty  in  sustaining 
itself,  despite  the  attitude  assumed  by  the  commander  of 

H.  M.  S.  Flamborough  stationed  at  Charles  Town.48  In  Eng¬ 
land  the  news  of  the  revolt  led  to  futile  efforts  by  the  Proprie¬ 
tors  to  cash  in  on  their  property  at  the  height  of  the  speculative 
excitement  of  that  mad  ‘bubble’  era.  Two  attempts  to  sell  Caro¬ 
lina  were  made.  An  agreement  seems  actually  to  have  been 
reached  in  1720  to  sell  the  charter  to  three  Quakers  for  £230,- 
000.  ‘Their  design,’  declared  Barnwell,  ‘was  to  make  a  Buble 
of  it.’  Yonge  asserted  that  they  intended  ‘to  divide  the  Country 
into  shares,  which  were  to  be  Stock-Jobb’d  in  Exchange  Alley,’ 
but  were  prevented  by  the  act  for  suppressing  bubbles.  News  of 
these  proceedings  naturally  heightened  provincial  resentment 
and  protest  was  lodged  with  Secretary  Craggs  against  this  at¬ 
tempt  to  ‘elude  that  Justice  we  might  Reasonably  hope.’49  The 
second  negotiation,  in  1720-1721,  was  for  the  sale  of  Carolina 
to  the  reorganized  South  Sea  Company.  In  1726  a  pamphleteer 
bitterly  denounced  the  Proprietors  for  adopting  in  these  affairs 
‘the  Practice  of  the  Coast  of  Africa’  in  bartering  ‘for  the  Sale 
of  free,  and  natural  Subjects’  to  ‘a  Set  of  Jews  and  Brokers.’50 

John  Barnwell’s  first  task  in  England,  the  reconciling  of  the 
home  government  to  the  fait  accompli,  was  easily  accomplished. 
His  mission  had  been  prepared  by  persistent  anti-proprietary 
propaganda  in  recent  years,  which  was  now  intensified  by  a 
new  flood  of  letters  and  memorials  from  South  Carolina.51  The 
Board  of  Trade  saw  the  triumph  of  a  long-established  policy  in 

48  Carroll  (ed.),  Collections,  II.  183-7 ;  Boston  News  Letter,  June  5, 
1721 ;  Rivers,  Chapter,  pp.  52-9;  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  I.  58  f.  On  the  atti¬ 
tude  of  North  Carolina,  see  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II.  374  f.,  384. 

49  Historical  MSS  Commission,  Eleventh  Report,  part  IV,  pp.  255,  256. 
C.O.  5:358,  A  18;  Yonge,  in  Carroll  (ed.),  Collections,  II.  190 f. 

60  This  forgotten  episode  was  revealed  to  Nicholson  by  Kettleby  as  a 
great  secret  in  a  letter  of  January  17,  1720/21,  in  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  IV,  part 

I,  p.  97.  Confirmation  appears  in  Bertie’s  letter  to  Lord  Carlton,  August 
14,  1724 :  ‘I  must  observe  to  your  Lordship  that  at  that  time  the  South  Sea 
directors  had  set  up  a  treaty  for  the  purchase  of  the  whole  Province  from 
the  Proprietors;  and  hastened  the  Prosecution  against  their  Charters  in 
order  to  lessen  their  Demands  and  at  the  same  time  a  Scire  facias  was 
directed  to  be  brought  against  our  Charter,  but  none  was  ever  issued  out, 
or  any  further  proceedings  had,  and  by  his  Majesties  Act  of  Grace  in  1721 
all  proceedings  of  that  kind  were  determined’  (C.O.  5:290,  pp.  165-6).  See 
also  Liberty  and  Property,  1726,  p.  27. 

51  See  especially  C.O.  5  :358,  A  3,  and  documents  cited  in  note  47. 


220 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


sight.  Nor  was  the  Privy  Council  slow  to  act.  By  an  order  of 
August  11,  1720,  which  pointed  to  the  great  importance  of 
South  Carolina  as  a  frontier  as  well  as  its  commercial  value, 
the  government  was  taken  provisionally  into  the  hands  of  the 
Crown.  The  Board  was  directed  to  prepare  a  commission  and 
instructions  for  Francis  Nicholson,  and  to  propose  such  further 
measures  as  were  necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  province.52 
Another  Order  in  Council  of  September  directed  that  a  scire 
facias  be  procured  to  vacate  the  charter.53  But  the  Proprietors 
bowed  to  the  inevitable,  and  this  attack  was  not  pressed.  Until 
1729  the  Proprietors  retained  their  title  to  the  soil  of  Carolina. 

The  second  purpose  of  Barnwell’s  mission  was  to  convert 
the  colonial  authorities  to  a  vigorous  program  of  frontier  de¬ 
fense  in  the  South.  Since  the  death  of  Captain  Nairne  no  Caro¬ 
linian,  perhaps  no  American,  was  better  qualified  than  this 
Beaufort  planter  and  veteran  of  numerous  Indian  campaigns 
to  assist  the  Board  of  Trade  in  laying  the  groundwork  of  an 
imperial  western  policy.  Though  Barnwell  based  his  program 
upon  the  Indian  system  of  South  Carolina,  it  was  conceived 
on  a  truly  continental  scale;  its  object  was  to  offset  the  rapid 
expansion  of  French  influence  all  along  the  back  of  the  English 
sea-board  colonies.  The  notable  reports  of  the  Board  of  Trade 
upon  South  Carolina  in  1720  almost  literally  reproduced  Barn¬ 
well’s  suggestions.  His  ideas  were  again  incorporated,  with 
those  of  William  Keith,  in  the  great  representation  upon  the 
state  of  the  colonies  of  September  8,  1721.  With  these  docu¬ 
ments,  issuing  from  Whitehall  in  1720-1721,  British  western 
policy  may  be  said  to  begin. 

Much,  to  be  sure,  had  been  done  before  1720  to  stir  the 
home  government  to  a  realization  of  the  western  problem  in 
its  international  bearings,  by  Alexander  Spotswood  and  Wil¬ 
liam  Keith  as  well  as  by  the  Carolinians.  The  energetic  royal 
governor  of  Virginia,  in  particular,  had  already  appropriated 
to  himself  the  role  of  guardian  of  British  interests  in  trans- 
Appalachia.54  As  early  as  1710,  when  he  first  came  out  to 

52  C.O.  5  :358,  A  1.  Nicholson’s  instructions  are  in  Rivers,  Chapter,  pp. 
68-91. 

53  C.O.  5  :358,  A  24;  Liberty  and  Property,  1726,  p.  28. 

M  Historians  have  been  inclined  to  accept  Spotswood’s  leadership  in 
western  enterprise  too  nearly  at  his  own  valuation.  See  the  sweeping  asser¬ 
tion  of  so  cautious  a  scholar  as  Osgood  in  his  American  Colonies  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  II.  238. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLIC 


221 


America,  he  had  proposed  to  the  Board  of  Trade  a  scheme  for 
preventing  the  French  from  linking  their  settlements  in  Canada 
and  Louisiana.55  But  the  plan  was  a  singularly  immature  one: 
to  restrict  settlement  to  one  side  only  of  the  James  River,  so 
that  it  would  soon  be  colonized  all  the  way  to  the  lake  beyond 
the  mountains  where  it  was  reputed  to  take  its  rise.  Spotswood 
aroused  no  more  interest  at  home  than  had  Nairne  with  his 
extraordinary  memorial  of  1708.  Comparison  of  the  two 
schemes  leaves  no  doubt  that  the  Carolinian  was  master  of  a 
subject  where  Spotswood  was  yet  a  tyro.  The  difference  was 
essentially  a  matter  of  knowledge  and  of  experience  of  the 
West.  Spotswood’s  imagination  had  been  stirred  by  a  two- 
hundred  miles’  reconnaissance  of  his  horsemen  to  the  crest  of 
the  first  Virginia  mountains,  but  Nairne  had  matched  wits  with 
the  French  on  the  Mississippi.  Indeed,  the  Virginia  expedition 
in  the  fall  of  1710  fell  far  short  of  earlier  exploits  of  Virginia 
traders,  lost  to  memory  in  the  Old  Dominion.  This  affair  of 
1710  was  a  precursor  of  the  more  famous  summer  junket  of 
Spotswood  and  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Horseshoe  in  1716. 
Two  years  later  the  governor  asserted  that  ‘the  Chief  Aim  of 
my  Expedition  over  the  great  Mountains  in  1716,  was  to  satisfy 
my  Self  whether  it  was  practicable  to  come  at  the  Lakes.’ 
Contemporary  comment  emphasized  other  motives :  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  mines,  the  extension  of  the  trade  of  Spotswood’s 
Indian  Company,  hampered  by  the  discriminatory  policy  of 
South  Carolina,  and  the  rehabilitation  of  his  political  fortunes 
by  western  adventures.56  In  any  case  the  affair  has  been  grossly 
exaggerated  as  an  episode  in  the  westward  advance  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  empire.  It  was  not  even  the  first  official  exploration  into 
the  Shenandoah.  A  letter  from  North  Carolina  in  July,  1716, 
revealed  that  Spotswood’s  rangers  that  spring  had  penetrated 
forty  miles  beyond  the  newly  discovered  pass.57 

It  was  not  until  the  summer  of  1718,  apparently,  that  Spots- 

55  Spotswood,  Letters,  I.  40. 

66  Ibid.,  II.  295.  See  the  very  interesting  abstract  of  a  letter  from 
Chowan,  N.  C.,  unsigned,  of  July  4,  1716,  in  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  125,  for  Caro¬ 
linian  speculation  on  Spotswood’s  efforts  to  reach  the  western  tribes,  and 
for  evidence  regarding  the  rangers’  exploit  of  that  spring. 

67  Ibid.  See  ‘Journal  of  the  Lieut.  Governor’s  Travels  and  Expeditions 
Undertaken  for  the  Public  Service  of  Virginia,’  in  William  and  Mary  Col¬ 
lege  Quarterly,  second  series,  III.  40-5. 


222 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


wood  returned  in  his  voluminous  correspondence  to  the  subject 
of  checkmating  the  French,  and  then  in  reply  to  queries  from 
the  Board  prompted  by  Berres ford’s  noteworthy  memorial  of 
1717.58  He  had  learned  a  good  deal  in  eight  years,  partly  from 
his  own  travels  and  investigations  among  the  Indians,  though 
he  was  too  easily  persuaded  that  only  a  five  days’  march  sepa¬ 
rated  his  pass  from  the  Great  Lakes.  But  most  of  his  informa¬ 
tion  seems  to  have  come  from  Charles  Town,  the  southern 
capital  of  the  Indian  trade.  To  give  point  to  his  theme  of 
French  encirclement  he  sent  home  a  table  of  distances  from 
Montreal  to  Mobile,  given  him  by  three  Frenchmen  who  had 
accompanied  the  ill-fated  Ramesay-D’Adoucourt  expedition 
against  the  Fox  Indians  when  it  was  attacked  by  the  Chero¬ 
kee.59  The  French,  he  warned,  were  now  able  to  engross 
the  whole  skin  trade  of  the  West.  If  they  completed  their  con¬ 
nections  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf,  ‘they  might  even  possess 
themselves  of  any  of  these  Plantations  they  pleased.’  To  fore¬ 
stall  them  he  proposed  that  he  be  permitted  to  finance  a  Vir¬ 
ginia  expedition  to  the  Great  Lakes  out  of  the  provincial  surplus. 
An  English  post  on  Lake  Erie  would  serve  to  cut  the  line  of 
French  communications. 

This  project  was  Spotswood’s  only  real  contribution  to  that 
discussion  of  anti-French  strategy  which  the  Carolinians  had 
set  in  train,  and  even  in  this  matter  he  had  been  anticipated  by 
Nicholson.  It  was  based,  of  course,  upon  a  serious  miscalcula¬ 
tion  of  trans-Appalachian  distances.  Again  in  1720  Spotswood 
added  his  voice  to  the  chorus  of  demands  from  America  for  an 
aggressive  English  western  policy.60  In  1719  the  Board  of 
Trade  was  convinced  that  the  opportunity  of  the  war  with 
Spain  should  be  used  for  an  attack  upon  St.  Augustine.  In  a 
set  of  queries  to  Virginia  and  Carolina  they  invited  comment 
on  the  projected  campaign.  Spotswood  endorsed  it  heartily,  and 
applied  for  the  command.  His  old  army  associates  should  no 
longer  assert  that  he  had  buried  himself  in  America.  The  con¬ 
quest  of  Florida,  he  said,  would  give  England  control  over 
French  and  Spanish  communications  with  their  Gulf  colonies. 
Moreover,  it  would  enable  the  English  to  frustrate  the  French 

58  Spotswood,  Letters,  II.  295-8;  and  see  ibid.,  p.  300. 

59  L.  P.  Kellogg,  Freneh  Regime  in  Wisconsin,  1925,  pp.  283  f. 

60  Spotswood,  Letters,  II.  329-33,  336  f. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


223 


design  to  advance  eastward  from  the  Mississippi  at  the  expense 
of  Carolina.  For  Spotswood  accepted  completely  the  Carolinian 
theory  of  the  eastward  push  from  Louisiana.  ‘The  greatest 
danger  of  Encroachm’ts,’  he  declared,  ‘is  on  the  side  of  South 
Carolina.’  He  referred  to  the  recent  French  capture  of  Pensa¬ 
cola,  to  French  activities  among  the  Creeks,  and,  in  a  second 
letter  of  1720,  to  the  establishment  of  Fort  Toulouse,  of  which 
he  had  just  heard,  as  evidence  in  point.  He  proposed  to  occupy 
not  only  St.  Augustine  but  also  Apalache,  and  from  thence  to 
check  the  French,  divide  the  Indian  trade,  and  in  time  of  war 
annoy  Louisiana.  But  this,  essentially,  had  been  the  Carolinian 
dream  for  over  twenty  years.  Spotswood  derived  most  of  his 
information  of  French  encroachments  from  Charles  Town 
sources.  The  map  which  was  enclosed  to  illustrate  his  report 
was  a  crude  chart  of  ‘the  Country  adjacent  to  the  River  Misis- 
ipi’  which  he  had  copied  from  the  original  draught  by  the  ad¬ 
venturous  Carolina  planter,  Price  Hughes.61 

No  doubt  endorsement  of  the  main  features  of  the  Caro¬ 
linian  propaganda  by  the  royal  governor  of  Virginia  added 
greatly  to  its  effect  in  London.  And  from  other  authoritative 
sources  came  the  same  cry  that  the  French  were  rapidly  draw¬ 
ing  a  circle  around  the  English  colonies.  In  July,  1719,  the 
Board  of  Trade  received  from  the  deputy-governor  of  Pennsyl¬ 
vania,  William  Keith,  his  notable  report  upon  the  progress  of 
the  French  in  America,  also  prompted  by  Berres ford’s  me¬ 
morial.62  Keith  insisted  that  only  one  method  was  hopeful  to 
break  through  the  bounds  which  the  French  were  seeking  to 
establish  beyond  the  mountains,  or,  indeed,  to  preserve  intact 
the  existing  line  of  seaboard  colonies.  The  English  must  gain 
the  friendship  of  the  Indians,  and  this  could  be  acquired  by 
trade  only.  Complete  intercolonial  freedom  of  trade  was  re¬ 
quisite,  and  the  suppression  of  such  jealousies  as  existed  be¬ 
tween  New  York  and  Virginia,  Virginia  and  South  Carolina. 
‘A  National  Interest’  must  take  the  place  of  selfish  localism. 
In  drafting  his  report  Keith  had  made  use  of  a  striking  ‘Ac¬ 
count  of  the  French  Trade’  prepared  at  his  request  by  James 

61  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  Virginia,  2. 

62  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  179.  Save  for  the  Iroquois,  Keith  said,  the  English 
Indians  north  of  Carolina  were  fewer  than  1500. 


224 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Logan.63  Logan  endorsed  Spotswood’s  project  for  western 
settlements  and  a  Lake  Erie  fort,  and  urged  that  special  en¬ 
couragement  should  be  given  to  the  Indian  traders  of  South 
Carolina,  ‘who  have  very  good  Opportunities  of  making  Al¬ 
liances  with  all  the  Indians  to  the  Southward  of  the  Lakes,  and 
to  the  East  of  the  Mississippi.’ 

Thus  South  Carolina,  Virginia,  Pennsylvania  spoke  almost 
with  one  voice.  From  New  York,  meanwhile,  came  reports  of 
a  new  western  offensive  of  the  Albany  traders,  but  also  of  the 
resistance  of  the  French:  of  Joincare’s  intrigues  among  the 
western  Iroquois,  and  of  the  French  project  for  a  post  at  Ni¬ 
agara.64  These  tactics  naturally  seemed  part  of  the  same  policy 
as  recent  menaces  against  the  Cherokee  in  the  South.  In  the 
light  of  such  evidence,  North  and  South,  of  French  aggression, 
the  current  advices  from  Paris  of  the  efforts  of  the  Western 
Company  to  colonize  Louisiana,  and  in  1720  of  the  great 
scheme  of  the  Compagnie  des  Indes,  took  on  an  ominous  sig¬ 
nificance.65  In  1718  the  royal  cartographer  of  France,  Guil¬ 
laume  Delisle,  had  issued  his  famous  map  of  Louisiana  and  the 
course  of  the  Mississippi.  Englishmen  could  not  but  view  with 
astonishment  and  alarm  the  restricted  western  boundaries  which 
he  gave  to  the  middle  and  southern  English  colonies,  at  no  point 
west  of  the  Appalachians,  and  at  the  two  ends  of  the  frontier, 
where  the  English  trading  advance  had  been  most  successful, 
far  to  the  east.  The  alarmist  warnings  of  the  little  group  of 
Anglo-American  imperialists  were  confirmed  by  every  despatch 
from  the  French  capital. 

In  the  summer  of  1719  the  Board  of  Trade  had  a  special 
reason  for  seeking  all  possible  information  of  English  western 
claims  and  French  encroachments.  By  the  peace  of  Utrecht  the 
boundaries  of  the  English  and  French  colonies  in  North  Amer¬ 
ica  had  been  left  for  later  negotiation.  Parleys  were  now  about 
to  begin  in  Paris.66  Martin  Bladen  and  Daniel  Pultenev  were 

63  C  O  5  *1268  S  33 

64  Wraxall,  Abridgement,  edited  by  C.  H.  Mcllwain,  pp.  112.  117,  118, 
124;  Buffinton,  ‘The  Policy  of  Albany  and  English  Westward  Expansion.' 
in  MVHR,  VIII.  357;  Osgood,  Am.  Col.  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  III. 
363-6. 

65  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane,  liv.  I,  chapters  i,  ii ;  Jean  Buvat,  Journal  de  la 
rcgence,  1715-1723,  II.  14. 

“  See  Henri  Le  Clercq,  Histoire  de  la  regence,  1921,  III.  352,  for  the 
origin  of  these  negotiations,  in  French  resentment  of  English  encroach¬ 
ments.  The  Regent’s  proposal  concerned  Acadia  and  Hudson  Bay. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


225 


named  commissioners,  and  the  Lords  of  Trade  were  ordered 
to  draft  Bladen’s  instructions.67  Thus  was  raised  at  Whitehall 
the  whole  complex  problem  of  colonial  grants  and  claims, 
westward  of  the  Appalachians  as  well  as  in  Nova  Scotia  and 
in  the  Hudson  Bay  region,  to  the  great  perplexity  of  the 
Board,  but  also,  certainly,  to  their  education.  From  every 
available  source  they  now  sought  data  to  substantiate  the  Eng¬ 
lish  title  to  the  West :  from  representatives  of  the  Hudson’s 
Bay  Company,  from  agents  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Mary¬ 
land,  and  Virginia,  and  from  the  Proprietors  of  Carolina.68 
The  latter  were  called  upon  for  the  best  available  map  of  the 
province  as  well  as  information  of  its  boundaries.  The  Board 
seems  to  have  developed  a  special  interest  in  the  alleged  in¬ 
trusions  of  the  French  into  the  territories  granted  by  the  Caro¬ 
lina  charter.  Among  other  witnesses  called  in  at  the  Cockpit 
was  that  indefatigable  promoter,  Dr.  Daniel  Coxe,  claimant 
of  Carolana  under  the  old  Heath  patent.  This  opportunity  he 
eagerly  seized  to  reassert  his  sweeping  claims  to  the  western 
part  of  Carolina,  which  had  lain  dormant  since  the  collapse  of 
the  Mississippi  project  in  1699.  With  a  gesture  of  conciliation 
he  now  offered  to  abandon  over  half  of  Carolana  ‘totally  and 
finally  to  the  French,’  and  to  draw  the  boundary  at  the  Missis¬ 
sippi.  To  establish  his  own  case  and  the  fact  of  English  priority 
in  this  region  he  produced  his  deeds  of  grant,  his  memorial  of 
1699,  and  several  new  memorials  and  some  maps.  Though  he 
was  able  to  cite  the  undoubted  achievements  in  western  ex¬ 
ploration  of  the  Virginians  and  Carolinians,  Needham,  Wood¬ 
ward,  and  Blake’s  traders,  he  had,  as  usual,  mislaid  the  requisite 
proofs.  At  the  hearing  on  Coxe’s  claims,  however,  Danson,  one 
of  the  Proprietors,  produced  a  witness  with  first-hand  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  extent  of  the  Carolina  Indian  trade,  one  Byth, 
formerly  a  trader  among  the  Upper  Creeks.  He  declared  that 

67  C.O.  391  yl  17,  JBT,  July  21,  1719  to  April  13,  1720;  Calendar  of  Treas¬ 
ury  Papers ,  1720-1728,  p.  47;  O.  M.  Dickerson,  American  Colonial  Govern¬ 
ment,  p.  63  note. 

68  See  especially  JBT,  July  24,  28,  August  4,  6,  7,  13,  14,  18,  19,  1719. 
Danson,  a  Proprietor,  ‘being  ask’d  how  far  Westward  the  people  of  Caro¬ 
lina  understood  their  Boundaries  to  extend  he  said,  they  extended  Westward 
as  far  as  the  Ocean,  and  that  they  traded  wth.  all  the  Indians  that  way,  but 
that  they  had  no  Forts  that  Way  at  all’  (August  19).  Previously  Joshua 
Gee  had  referred  to  the  mountains  as  ‘the  natural  Bounds  of  that  Province’ 
(July  24).  See  also  C.O.  323:7,  K  159,  160. 


226 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


the  English  had  traded  with  these  Indians  ‘above  30  years; 
that  the  Indians  were  not  then  subject  to  the  French.’  Coxe 
made  no  great  headway  in  his  own  interest.  In  1720,  however, 
Barnwell  wrote:  ‘I  am  informed  he  is  reviving  his  pretensions 
in  order  to  make  a  bubble  of  it.’69  Two  years  later  the  younger 
Daniel  Coxe  made  literary  salvage  of  his  father’s  memorials  in 
A  Description  of  the  English  Province  of  Carolana. 

The  investigation  had  elicited  many  assertions  of  English 
western  interests,  and  a  whole  new  crop  of  warnings  against 
the  French.  But  little  enough  had  been  disclosed  in  the  way  of 
adequate  proof  of  English  continental  claims.  The  Board  de¬ 
cided,  therefore,  to  hold  them  in  abeyance.  The  instructions70 
to  the  Paris  negotiators  excluded  all  mention  of  boundaries  save 
those  of  Nova  Scotia  and  Hudson  Bay.  The  explanatory  re¬ 
port  to  the  Privy  Council,71  however,  marked  a  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  British  western  policy.  With  refreshing  realism 
the  Lords  of  Trade  disposed  of  the  charter  grants:  though 
many  of  these  were  very  extensive,  ‘the  French  would  not  per¬ 
haps  be  determin’d  by  these  Authoritys  alone.’  Unable  to  secure 
as  yet  dependable  maps  of  the  plantations,  or  such  further  data 
as  might  be  required  to  support  the  British  title  ‘to  places 
which  the  French  possess  or  pretend  to  either  on  the  back  or 
Westward  of  the  British  Plantations  from  New  England  down 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,’  they  advised  perforce  a  limited  nego¬ 
tiation.  But  lest  this  should  be  construed  at  Paris  as  a  tacit 
admission  of  French  rights,  Bladen  was  charged  to  assert  that 
Great  Britain  had  reason  to  believe  the  French  had  made  several 
encroachments  ‘upon  the  British  settlements,’  which  might  be 
discussed  when  fuller  accounts  had  been  received  from  the 
colonial  governors.  Meanwhile,  at  Paris,  he  should  gather  in¬ 
formation  of  the  situation,  strength,  laws  and  government  of 
the  French  colonies  in  general,  and  especially  of  the  Mississippi 
Company.  Without  passing  judgment  upon  Coxe’s  rights,  the 
report  referred  particularly  to  the  Heath  patent  which  over- 

69  Historical  MSS  Commission,  Eleventh  Report,  part  IV,  p.  256. 

70  C.O.  323:7,  K  163;  and  draft  in  C.O.  391:117,  pp.  133-50,  especially 
p.  147. 

71  Ibid.,  pp.  122-6;  and  commissions,  pp.  127-32.  See  C.O.  323:7,  K  165, 
for  a  copy  of  the  French  instructions ;  and  ibid.,  K  166,  for  Pulteney’s  letter 
from  Paris,  December  5,  1719,  with  information  from  French  sources  on 
Louisiana. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


227 


lapped  both  Florida  and  Louisiana.  In  this  connection  they  ex¬ 
pressed  a  lively  hope  ‘that  in  imitation  of  our  Industrious 
Neighbors  of  France,  some  means  could  be  found  to  extend 
our  Settlements  likewise  towards  the  Bay  of  Mexico  more 
especially  while  we  are  at  War  with  Spain,  and  might  possibly 
preserve  by  a  future  Treaty  whatever  might  be  now  acquir’d.’ 
The  conquest  of  St.  Augustine  they  specified  as  ‘a  great  Se¬ 
curity  to  our  plantations  on  that  side.’  Thus  far  had  these 
matter-of-fact  mercantilists  of  Whitehall  gone  along  the  path 
of  aggressive  ‘imperialism’  pointed  out  by  Coxe  and  the 
Americans. 

With  the  entrance  of  Spain  into  the  Quadruple  Alliance  the 
conquest  of  St.  Augustine  naturally  dropped  out  of  the  discus¬ 
sion.  But  the  Anglo-French  entente  was  not  proof  against 
continued  suspicions  and  alarms.  By  July,  1720,  the  Board  of 
Trade  had  before  it  two  detailed  replies  from  South  Carolina 
to  queries  of  the  preceding  year.72  Col.  Johnson  and  the  as¬ 
sembly  differed  in  their  emphasis  upon  the  culpability  of  the 
Proprietors,  but  they  were  in  essential  agreement  as  to  the 
population  of  the  colony,  the  effect  of  the  Indian  war,  the 
number  of  the  Indian  allies,  and  especially  the  grave  frontier 
situation.  French  preparations  to  colonize  the  Mississippi,  de¬ 
clared  the  deposed  governor,  ‘cannot  but  very  much  alarm  all 
the  Continent  of  America,  and  especially  Carolina.’  If  war 
should  recur  with  France,  ‘this  Province  would  fall  an  easy 
Prey  to  them  and  very  probably  Virginia,  New  York,  and  the 
other  Plantations  to  which  this  Colony  is  a  Frontier,  would 
feel  the  effects  of  the  French  growing  so  power  full  in  Amer¬ 
ica.’  The  assembly  described  the  building  of  Fort  Toulouse,  so 
disastrous  to  the  Indian  trade,  the  founding  of  New  Orleans, 
the  wholesale  importations  of  settlers,  the  capture  of  Pensacola, 
and  recent  French  activities  at  the  mouth  of  the  Chattahoo¬ 
chee — probably  the  Fort  Crevecoeur  episode — and  added  an 
alarmist  rumor  that  French  ‘Emissarys  have  been  viewing  the 
coast  between  this  settlement  and  St.  Augustine,’  which  ‘putts 
us  into  a  terrible  Consternation.’ 

The  excitement  in  America  had  already  awakened  echoes  in 

72  C.O.  5:1265,  201  (from  Johnson),  and  Q  205  (from  the  assembly). 
These  are  in  Rivers,  Chapter,  appendix,  pp.  91-109. 


228 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


England.  Popular  interest  in  John  Law’s  Mississippi  Bubble 
was  widespread.  In  February,  1720,  a  contemporary  French 
diarist  reported  news  from  London  of  great  agitation  in  Par¬ 
liamentary  circles  over  the  activities  of  the  Compagnie  des 
Indes.73  Sceptics  might  scoff  at  the  speculative  character  of 
the  French  enterprise,  but  in  the  spring  there  appeared  in 
London  an  anonymous  pamphlet  written  to  prove  that  behind 
the  financial  legerdemain  of  John  Law  lurked  a  real  menace 
to  Great  Britain  in  the  expansion  of  French  power  in  the 
West.  The  author  of  Some  Considerations  on  the  Consequences 
of  the  French  Settling  Colonies  on  the  Mississippi  was  probably 
not  the  Carolina  agent,  Richard  Berresford,  as  has  been 
thought,  but  James  Smith,  late  advocate-general  in  New  Eng¬ 
land,  who  a  little  later  secured  appointment  as  admiralty  judge 
in  South  Carolina.74  The  English  in  North  America,  he  de¬ 
clared,  believed  that  the  French  Mississippi  scheme  was  no 
chimera,  ‘as  some  not  far  from  Whitehall  can  testify,  from  the 
many  Letters,  Memorials,  Representations  and  Remonstrances, 
which  have  been  written  on  that  Subject  from  time  to  time, 
and  transmitted  to  England.’  This  ‘very  remarkable  pamphlet,’ 
as  one  London  journal75  described  it,  was  well  calculated  to 
stir  public  and  especially  official  interest  at  the  moment  when 
John  Barnwell  was  placing  before  the  Board  of  Trade  the  anti- 
French  program  of  the  Carolinians. 

As  a  veteran  of  Queen  Anne’s  War,  of  the  Tuscarora  War. 
and  of  the  Indian  rising  of  1715,  John  Barnwell  had  first-hand 
knowledge  of  the  Indian  and  Spanish  frontiers  from  Virginia 
to  the  neck  of  Florida;  moreover,  as  the  greatest  planter  of 
the  Port  Royal  district,  he  had  a  direct  interest  in  safeguard¬ 
ing  the  harassed  southern  border.  His  career  in  provincial 
office  gave  him  standing  as  a  colonial  expert  which  the  average 
agent,  chosen  from  the  merchant  group  in  London,  seldom 
possessed.  In  England  his  advice  was  sought  by  the  Azilia 

73  Jean  Buvat,  Journal  dc  la  regence,  II.  14. 

74  Ascribed  to  Richard  Berresford  by  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane,  p.  151  note, 
following  Justin  Winsor,  Narrative  and  Critical  History,  V.  76.  But  see 
Winsor,  Mississippi  Basin,  p.  141,  for  ascription  to  James  Smith,  for  which 
there  is  strong  internal  evidence.  The  author  showed  no  first-hand  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  the  southern  frontier,  much  with  the  New  England  border, 
and  he  recounted  the  troubles  of  an  advocate-general  in  New  England. 

76  Political  State  of  Great  Britain,  XIX.  359-82,  with  abstract  of  the  tract. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


229 


promoters,  by  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  Lord  Townshend,  and 
he  largely  wrote  the  instructions  to  the  governor  of  South 
Carolina  in  1720.  With  Boone  he  frequented  the  lodgings  of 
the  veteran  colonial  official,  General  Francis  Nicholson,  soon  to 
go  out  to  Carolina  as  provisional  royal  governor.76  In  that 
company  did  Nicholson  perhaps  recall  that  a  quarter-century 
earlier  his  had  been  one  of  the  first  voices  raised  to  warn 
Englishmen  of  the  danger  of  French  encirclement? 

Before  the  Board  of  Trade  in  August,  1720,  Barnwell  and 
Boone  presented  the  essence  of  their  program,  proposing  to 
check  French  aggression  by  imitating  the  most  striking  feature 
of  their  policy.  ‘The  Method  of  the  French,’  they  recalled,  ‘is 
to  build  Forts  on  their  Frontiers  which  it  wou’d  be  our  Interest 
to  do  likewise,  not  only  to  preserve  Our  Trade  with  the  Indians 
and  their  Dependance  upon  Us,  but  to  preserve  our  Boundaries.’ 
They  also  confirmed  the  most  alarming  item  in  the  recent  re¬ 
port  of  the  assembly,  ‘that  the  French  particularly  pretend  a 
Right  to  the  River  May  [Altamaha].’  ‘Therefore,’  they  urged, 
‘it  wou’d  be  more  immediately  necessary  for  Us  to  possess  our¬ 
selves  of  the  Mouth  of  that  River.’77 

These  proposals,  with  supporting  arguments,  were  elabo¬ 
rated  in  a  series  of  documents  which  the  Carolina  agents  now 
filed  with  the  Board  of  Trade  and  Secretary  Townshend.  They, 
too,  prepared  a  set  of  answers  to  the  Board’s  queries  of  17 19. 78 

76  Many  years  later  the  Rev.  James  McSparran  of  Rhode  Island  wrote 
that  in  1720  he  was  in  London  ‘and  often  saw  the  Provincial  Agents  at  the 
lodgings  of  my  great  friend  and  patron,  General  Francis  Nicholson’  (W. 
Updyke,  History  of  the  Episcopal  Church  in  Narragansett,  Appendix,  p. 
488).  Compare  Nicholson’s  eulogy  of  Barnwell,  recently  deceased,  in  JC, 
June  9,  1724.  He  deplored  the  ‘great  loss  that  his  Majesty’s  Province  in 
generall,  and  more  particularly  that  part  to  the  Southward,  hath  sustained 
.  .  ,  I  having  been  an  eye  and  ear  witness  of  the  great  service  he  did  for 
this  country  in  Great  Britain.’ 

77  JBT,  August  16,  1720. 

78C.O.  5:358,  A  7,  8;  presented  August  23  (see  JBT),  along  with  ‘An 
Account  of  the  proper  places  fit  for  Garrisons  in  Carolina  and  the  absolute 
necessity  of  doing  the  same  speedily’  (ibid.,  A  8)  ;  a  table  of  distances 
between  the  proposed  forts  (A  9)  ;  and  Thomas  Smith’s  ‘A  Description  of 
Pansecola,  Mobile  and  the  Mississippi  River,’  dated  February  22,  1719/20 
(A  10),  also  in  C.O.  5:12,  no.  1.  The  latter,  based  on  reports  of  Captain 
Byrchall  and  Mr.  Owen,  who  had  recently  arrived  overland  from  the  West 
at  Smith’s  plantation,  gave  considerable  detail  of  the  French  possessions  on 
the  Gulf  and  Mississippi.  See  also  Historical  MSS  Commission,  Eleventh 
Report,  Appendix,  part  IV,  pp.  254-6,  for  other  copies  in  the  Townshend 
MSS. 


230 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


In  these  they  set  forth,  more  clearly  than  elsewhere  appears, 
the  basis  of  the  western  claims  of  Carolina,  first,  the  charters, 
secondly,  and  particularly,  the  Indian  alliances.  For  further 
definition,  they  referred  to  Nairne’s  map.  The  Carolinians,  it 
appears,  still  claimed  the  whole  Indian  country  from  the  Chero¬ 
kee  nation  westward  along  the  Tennessee  to  the  Mississippi, 
the  Gulf  coast  from  Apalache  Bay  nearly  to  Pensacola,  and 
the  lands  of  the  Creeks  and  the  Chickasaw.  To  recover  these 
rightful  boundaries  and  to  check  further  encroachments  upon 
his  Majesty’s  domains,  as  well  as  to  hold  the  Indian  trade,  they 
specified  six  or  seven  strategic  locations  in  the  South  which 
should  now  be  fortified.  Port  Royal  should  be  made  a  port  of 
entry  and  the  magazine  of  supply  for  the  whole  southern  fron¬ 
tier.  At  Savannah  Town  should  be  built  a  stone  or  brick  fort 
to  guard  ‘the  ordinary  thorowfare  to  the  Westward  Indians.’ 
A  similar  fort  was  needed  at  Palachacola  Town.  But  the  most 
urgent  requirement  of  anti-French  defence  was  the  fortifica¬ 
tion  of  the  mouth  of  the  Altamaha.  Westward,  a  post  on  the 
Chattahoochee  at  the  crossing  of  the  trading-path  would  sup¬ 
port  English  influence  among  the  Lower  Creeks.  If  possible 
the  French  should  be  compelled  to  surrender  Fort  Toulouse  as 
a  usurpation ;  otherwise,  it  would  be  well  to  build  another  post 
upon  the  Tennessee  River,  ‘by  means  whereof  we  may  inter¬ 
rupt  the  communication  between  the  French  of  Mississippi,  and 
those  of  Canada,  and  prevent  them  from  gaining  the  Chero- 
kees.’  This,  obviously,  was  a  reversion  to  the  Nairne  project  of 
1707-1708.  With  emphasis  they  insisted  that  the  Indian  trade 
was  not  the  only  interest  that  would  be  served.  The  province, 
they  declared,  carried  on  the  trade  with  the  French  Indians  at  a 
loss,  ‘yet  they  are  under  a  necessity  of  supporting  it,  for  their 
own  preservation.’  Once  more  the  ‘next  war’  with  its  anticipated 
horrors  was  predicted.  ‘As  Carolina  is  the  South  west  Frontier 
to  the  rest  of  the  Collonys  and  by  its  Situation  has  a  more  easy 
Communication  with  the  Indians,  it  must  be  there  that  care 
must  be  taken;  a  penny  now  laid  out  may  save  pounds  here¬ 
after  and  enable  us  in  time  of  War,  even  to  dispossess  the 
French.’ 

The  Carolinian  scheme  for  frontier  posts  was  elaborated 
only  for  the  Southwest,  but  it  was  applicable  to  the  whole  conti- 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


231 


nental  frontier.  Other  memoranda  indicate  that  Barnwell  ex¬ 
pected  the  Altamaha  Fort  and  the  others  projected  to  become 
centres  of  settlement  as  well  as  defense,  and  that  the  project 
was  considered  adaptable  to  Nova  Scotia,  to  Virginia,  and  to 
that  maritime  frontier,  the  Bahamas,  as  well  as  to  Carolina. 
To  prevent  the  engrossing  of  the  soil  by  ‘the  several  Proprietors 
pretending  to  them  by  Charters,’  Barnwell  suggested  that  lands 
immediately  adjacent  to  the  forts  should  be  reserved  for  the 
support  of  officers  and  troops,  or  granted  under  tenure  of 
castle-guard,  without  quit-rents,  to  attract  traders  and  planters 
who  would  assist  in  defense.79  In  another  memorial  he  strongly 
urged  a  conference  of  governors  to  adjust  the  long-standing 
trade  rivalry  between  Virginia  and  South  Carolina.  This  might 
well  prove  fatal  to  both  in  face  of  French  aggression.  Virginia, 
he  added,  was  now  in  a  better  situation  than  ever  before  to  aid, 
out  of  her  own  treasury,  a  plan  for  securing  her  frontiers  along 
with  those  of  Carolina.80 

How  strong  an  impression  Barnwell  and  his  colleagues  had 
made  was  soon  evident.  Within  exactly  a  week  from  the  pre¬ 
sentation  of  the  scheme  for  frontier  forts  it  was  endorsed 
almost  verbatim  by  the  Board  of  Trade  to  the  Lords  Justices  ;81 
this  action  approached  a  record  for  celerity  in  Whitehall.  But 
the  Board  of  Trade  was  now  thoroughly  aroused.  There  was 
truth  as  well  as  flattery  in  the  agents’  reply  to  the  stereotyped 
query,  ‘What  Effect  have  the  French  settlements  on  the  Conti¬ 
nent  of  America  upon  his  Majesties  Plantations?’  ‘The  effects,’ 
they  wrote,  ‘are  better  known  to  your  Lordships  than  to  any 
body  of  Men  whatsoever.’82  That  Barnwell’s  scheme  was 
avowedly  an  imitation  of  the  grand  French  design  was  probably 
not  its  least  merit  in  the  view  of  Whitehall.  Along  with  fear 
that  their  rivals  might  realize  the  imputed  ambition  to  achieve 
‘an  Universal  Empire  in  America,’  went  a  very  wholesome 
respect  for  supposed  French  efficiency,  in  frontier  management 
as  well  as  in  centralized  colonial  control. 

79  C.O.  5:358,  A  11  (enclosure). 

80  Ibid. 

81  See  Delafaye  to  Board  of  Trade,  August  18,  1720,  directing  the  Board 
to  hasten  the  report  ‘of  what  is  further  necessary  to  be  done  for  the  safety’ 
of  Carolina  (C.O.  5:358,  A  7). 

82  C.O.  5  :358,  A  7,  8. 


232 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


At  the  moment  the  Board  was  engaged  in  framing  the 
elaborate  representation  upon  the  state  of  the  plantations  which 
was  completed  in  September,  1721. 83  Into  that  document  when 
it  was  issued  they  incorporated  their  new  western  policy,  com¬ 
bining  the  proposals  of  the  Carolinians,  of  Spotswood,  and  of 
Governor  Burnet,  who  suggested  the  occupation  of  Niagara. 
But  in  1720  they  recognized  the  special  urgency  of  the  affairs 
of  ‘Carolina  and  Nova  Scotia,  the  two  Frontiers  of  the  British 
Empire  in  America  to  the  North  and  to  the  South.’  The  chief 
care  of  the  French,  they  believed,  was  to  make  themselves 
strong  ‘at  the  two  Heads  of  their  Colonies,  North  and  South.’ 
In  the  next  war  the  conquest  of  Nova  Scotia  from  Quebec  and 
Cape  Breton  might  be  expected.  Even  greater  was  the  danger 
of  Carolina,  ‘where  our  Bounds  have  never  yet  been  Ascer¬ 
tained  any  other  way,  but  by  the  Charters  to  the  Lords  Pro¬ 
prietors,’  and  where,  recently,  the  negro  slaves  had  conspired 
to  massacre  their  masters.84  Accordingly,  on  August  30,  1720, 
the  Board  submitted  to  the  Privy  Council,  along  with  Nichol¬ 
son’s  instructions,  an  emergency  report  upon  the  two  border 
colonies.85  Four  battalions  of  foot  should  be  sent  to  each,  and 
in  the  South  the  Barnwell  plan  of  frontier  forts  should  be  put 
into  immediate  execution.  The  Board,  indeed,  recognized  the 
utility  of  the  scheme  for  the  whole  continental  frontier.  The 
French  had  realized  that  ‘a  continued  Possession  in  an  unin¬ 
habited  Country  was  a  better  Title  than  a  Charter  without  Pos¬ 
session  ;  and  for  the  same  reason  no  doubt  it  would  behove  us  to 
extend  ourselves  as  far  as  may  be  by  building  Forts  in  conven¬ 
ient  Places  to  mark  our  Possessions  likewise  on  the  frontiers  of 
our  several  Colonies  on  the  Continent  of  America.’  The  location 
of  most  of  the  Carolina  posts  might  be  left  to  Nicholson’s  dis¬ 
cretion,  but  there  was  a  special  urgency  in  securing  the  river 
Altamaha.  The  failure  of  the  French  to  retain  possession  of 
Pensacola  in  the  Treaty  of  Madrid,  and  the  difficulties  which 
they  had  encountered  in  the  navigation  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi  made  it  more  than  ever  probable  that  they  would 

83  Docs.  rel.  Col.  Hist.  N.  Y.,  V.  591-630;  extract  in  Col.  Rec.  N.  C.,  II. 
418-25. 

84  C.O.  5  :358,  A  2. 

85  C.O.  5:400,  p.  31-40.  All  quotations  in  this  paragraph  are  from  that 
document. 


BRITISH  WESTERN  POLICY 


233 


seek  to  iiitrude  into  the  region  between  St.  Augustine  and  the 
Carolina  border,  whereby  ‘the  British  Interest  in  America  wou’d 
receive  a  more  fatal  Blow  .  .  .  than  from  any  other  Possession 
the  French  have  hitherto  acquired  on  the  continent  of  America.’ 

In  this  first  item  only  of  the  new  western  policy  was  the 
Board  able  to  carry  the  Privy  Council  with  it.  To  the  program 
as  a  whole,  as  propounded  from  Whitehall  in  1720  and  again 
in  1721,  there  were  formidable  objections.  The  expense  would 
be  considerable ;  and  in  any  case  such  a  conception  of  territorial 
‘imperialism’  on  a  continental  scale  was  alien  to  the  temper  of 
Whig  colonial  administration.  Even  so,  the  discussions  of  1720- 
1721  mark  a  significant  stage  in  the  development  of  British 
‘imperialism’  and  especially  of  British  western  policy  in  face  of 
French  encirclement.  The  provincial  origins  of  that  policy  were 
indubitable. 

At  the  direction  of  the  Lords  Justices  the  Board  of  Trade 
on  September  23,  1720,  reported  again  upon  measures  im¬ 
mediately  necessary  to  safeguard  the  southern  frontier.86  Barn¬ 
well’s  proposals  for  the  Altamaha  garrison,  for  the  allotment 
of  lands  for  ‘the  new  projected  Town’  at  Altamaha  River,  and 
for  the  Indian  trade  conference,  were  heartily  approved.  It  was 
urged,  moreover,  that  the  command  of  the  garrison  should  de¬ 
volve  on  the  Carolina  special  agent  ‘whose  knowledge  of  the 
Country  and  Experience  in  matters  of  this  Nature  will  highly 
conduce  to  the  promoting  a  Settlement  on  this  Frontier.’  The 
Board  also  adopted  a  memorandum  of  instructions  for  the  com¬ 
mander  drawn  up  by  Barnwell,  which  included  a  direction  ‘not 
to  suffer  any  other  Nation  to  take  possession  of  any  Part  of 
the  said  River,  or  of  the  Sea  Coasts  from  Port  Royal  to  St. 
Augustine.’87 

The  building  of  Altamaha  Fort  was  readily  approved  by 
the  Privy  Council,  and  Governor  Nicholson  received  the  neces¬ 
sary  instructions.88  In  1721,  therefore,  began  the  actual  Eng¬ 
lish  occupation  of  the  old  Spanish  province  of  Guale,  the  future 
English  colony  of  Georgia.  It  is  significant  that  in  the  whole 
preceding  discussion  there  had  been  no  mention  of  Spanish 

86  C.O.  5  :400,  p.  126. 

87C.O.  5:358,  A  11. 

88  C.O.  5:358,  A  19,  A  21,  A  23. 


234 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


rights.  Nor  was  the  dubious  military  value  of  the  post  in  shield¬ 
ing  the  border  from  the  Spanish  and  the  marauding  Yamasee 
an  important  reason  for  its  location.  In  fact  it  was  intended, 
as  wTas  Georgia  later,  in  large  measure,  as  a  strategic  move  in 
the  Anglo-French  conflict  for  the  West.  Not  Oswego  in  1727, 
but  Altamaha,  in  1721,  saw  the  inception  of  the  British 
eighteenth-century  scheme  of  frontier  posts  to  counteract 
French  expansion. 

Both  in  Barnwell’s  memorials  and  in  the  Board’s  reports, 
moreover,  it  was  intended  that  this  fort  and  the  others  in  con¬ 
templation  should  become  centres  of  frontier  settlement.  Thus 
as  early  as  1720,  under  pressure  from  the  Carolina  expansion¬ 
ists,  the  occupation  of  the  region  which  became  Georgia  had 
been  definitely  approved  by  the  Board  of  Trade  as  part  of  a 
plan  to  defeat  the  supposed  encircling  policy  of  France.  For  a 
decade  various  obstacles  prevented  the  fruition  of  this  purpose. 
Nevertheless  Fort  King  George,  rather  than  Azilia,  pointed  the 
way  to  the  establishment  of  the  march  colony  of  Georgia. 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Carolina-Florida  Border,  1721-1730 

On  May  22,  1721,  H.M.S.  Enterprise,  with  Governor 
Francis  Nicholson,  John  Barnwell,  and  the  royal  troops  aboard, 
dropped  anchor  at  Charles  Town  bar.  Her  arrival,  anxiously 
expected  by  the  supporters  of  the  temporary  government,  put 
an  end  to  the  attempts  of  Johnson  and  Captain  Hildesley  to 
defeat  the  popular  revolution.1 

Amid  rejoicing  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  order  in  the  col¬ 
ony  government,  and  in  defense  of  the  southern  frontier,  there 
were  reasons  for  dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  Barnwell  and 
the  old  soldier  who  had  supported  him  so  vigorously  in  his 
dealings  with  Whitehall.  Official  lethargy  in  England  had  come 
near  to  defeating  in  advance  the  one  item  in  the  expansionist 
program  of  the  Carolinians  and  the  Board  of  Trade  to  which 
the  government  had  given  assent.  Instead  of  a  battalion  of  foot, 
a  single  company  of  soldiers  had  come  over  on  the  Enterprise ; 
and  not  the  young  artificers  for  whom  Nicholson  had  pleaded, 
but  a  hundred  invalids,  half  of  them  now  ill  of  scurvy.  Tools 
for  building  the  fort  had  indeed  been  furnished  by  the  Board 
of  Ordnance,  but  the  engineer  had  failed  to  sail  with  Nicholson 
as  he  had  agreed.  Barnwell  had  expected  the  lieutenancy  of  the 
independent  company  and  a  command  on  the  same  footing  as 
at  Annapolis  and  Placentia,  but  had  been  disappointed.  ‘With¬ 
out  an  Engineer,  without  Carpenters,  Smiths,  Brick-layers  and 
other  Trades-men,  and  even  without  men  Capable  of  doing  any 
work,  it  was  hopeless,’  he  declared,  to  employ  the  independent 
company  in  making  the  projected  settlement  on  the  Altamaha. 
But  delay  might  be  fatal.  He  therefore  proposed  that  some  of 
the  province  scouts  should  be  sent  at  once  to  ‘secure  possession 
of  that  place  by  a  small  Palissado  Fort  and  a  few  Huts,’  until 
the  regular  royal  fort  could  be  built.2  Nicholson  and  his  council 
concurred,  and  entrusted  the  task  to  Barnwell  himself  as  the 

1  C.O.  5 :387,  ft.  23,  24.  McCrady,  S.  C.  under  the  Royal  Government, 
p.  34. 

2  C.O.  5:358,  A  34:  ‘Letters  and  Papers  relating  to  Landing  His  Majes¬ 
ty’s  Independent  Company  now  in  South-Carolina  &ca.  and  likewise  con¬ 
cerning  Coll.  Barnwell’s  going  to  Altamaha  River  in  order  to  Build  a 
Small  -Fort  there’  (16  folios),  especially  Barnwell’s  memorial,  June  3,  1721. 

[235  ] 


236 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


commander  of  the  southern  scouts.  He  was  ordered  to  take 
possession  of  the  Altamaha  in  the  King’s  name  ‘for  use  of  the 
Crown  of  Great  Britain,’  and  if  interrupted  by  Indians  or  Euro¬ 
peans  ‘to  repel  force  by  force.’3 

At  Port  Royal  Barnwell  met  with  further  discouragement. 
The  scoutmen,  during  his  absence  in  England,  had  lost  all 
semblance  of  discipline :  ‘a  wild  idle  people,’  he  described  them, 
‘and  continually  Sotting  if  they  can  get  any  Rum  for  Trust 
or  Money.’4  Yet,  he  added,  ‘they  are  greatly  usefull  for  such 
Expeditions  as  these  if  well  and  Tenderly  managed.’  Early  in 
July  he  was  ready  to  sail  southward  with  twenty-six  of  these 
‘hopeful  fellows,’  ‘all  drunk  as  beasts,’  and  a  white  sawyer  with 
his  Indian  slaves.  At  the  ‘passage  fort’  Captain  Palmeter  and 
several  other  scouts  were  added.  Barnwell,  with  two  small  boats, 
followed  the  inland  passage,  and  on  July  13  made  rendezvous 
with  the  supply  sloop  from  Beaufort  in  the  embouchure  of  the 
Altamaha.  Meanwhile,  in  that  vast  expanse  of  marshland  and 
cypress  swamps,  he  had  selected  a  site  for  the  post.  Several 
branches  of  the  estuary  were  explored  before  he  found  a  suit¬ 
able  bluff  on  the  north  bank  of  the  northern  branch,  five  miles 
below  its  exit  from  the  principal  stream,  and  near  the  town  oc¬ 
cupied  by  the  Huspaw  people  in  1715. 5  There  he  made  ready 
to  erect  the  temporary  fort,  save  for  the  warehouses  of  the 
traders  the  first  English  establishment  in  the  land  which  became 
Georgia. 

It  was  well  that  Barnwell  had  brought  such  seasoned  fron¬ 
tiersmen  as  the  Port  Royal  scouts.  No  timber  could  be  found 
within  three  miles  of  Garrison  Point,  so  he  decided  to  build 
with  cypress  plank,  four  inches  thick  and  musket-proof,  instead 
of  logs.  ‘This  cypress,’  he  wrote  in  his  journal,  ‘can’t  be  gott 
out  of  the  Swamp  without  wading  naked  up  to  the  waist  or 
sometimes  to  the  neck,  which  is  a  Terrible  Slavery,  especially 
now  in  the  dog  days,  when  the  Musquetos  are  in  their  Vigour.’ 
By  such  herculean  labors  was  built  the  Altamaha  Fort,  a 
‘planked  house,’  or  gabled  blockhouse,  twenty-six  feet  square. 

J Ibid. 

4  S.P.G.  MSS,  B,  V,  no.  257 :  Barnwell  to  Nicholson,  dated  ‘Garrison  at 
Altamaha  point,  July  21,  1721.’  This  vivid  journal  of  a  neglected  episode 
in  the  Anglo-American  frontier  advance  has  recently  been  printed  in 
SCHGM,  XXVII.  189-203. 

6  C.O.  Maps,  Georgia  2. 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORID  A  BORDER 


237 


There  were  three  floors :  a  magazine  floor,  a  gun-floor  at  six 
feet  from  the  ground,  with  walls  pierced  for  cannon  and  mus¬ 
ketry,  and  above  a  ‘jetting  floor  to  clear  the  sides,’  with  more 
loopholes  for  small  arms.  High  in  the  gable  a  lookout  window 
commanded  a  wide  view  of  river  and  marsh  and  old  Indian 
fields,  and  of  St.  Simon’s  Island  to  the  east  and  southeast.  On 
the  land  side  the  blockhouse  was  defended  by  an  earthen  para¬ 
pet,  five  to  six  feet  high,  with  a  bastion,  and  surrounding  pali¬ 
sades  and  a  moat.  Another  parapet  of  fascines  fronted  the  river, 
and  the  palisades  were  continued  along  the  marsh  on  the  north¬ 
east.  Within  this  irregular  triangle,  in  a  space  measuring  two 
hundred  by  three  hundred  feet,  stood  several  palmetto-roofed 
huts  and  barracks.6  Such  was  Altamaha  Fort,  or  Fort  King 
George  as  it  was  grandly  named,  a  frontier  improvisation  which 
the  King’s  officers  mocked  and  reviled.7  Barnwell  himself 
thought  it  serviceable  only  as  a  temporary  shelter,  until  a  strong 
fort  could  be  constructed  on  St.  Simon’s  Island  to  command  all 
the  mouths  of  the  Altamaha  and  the  sea-approach.8 

While  ‘Tuscarora  Jack’  and  his  rangers  were  toiling  in  the 
swamps  of  Altamaha,  at  Charles  Town  Nicholson  was  per¬ 
suading  the  assembly  to  advance  the  charges  of  the  enterprise. 
As  a  matter  of  course  the  assembly  grumbled.  ‘This  Infant 
Colony,’  they  asserted,  ‘is  so  farr  from  being  able  to  bear  the 
Charges  of  making  new  Acquisitions  to  the  Crown  that  it  is 
scarce  in  a  Condition  to  support  the  Garrisons  already  settled 
without  his  Majesty’s  Aid  and  Assistance.’9  But  in  the  end  they 
complied.  In  fact,  within  a  year  the  province  laid  out  nearly  a 
thousand  pounds  sterling  upon  the  Altamaha  project.10  Until 
the  independent  company  was  fit  for  border  service  provincial 
troops  from  the  colony  posts  were  quartered  at  Fort  King 

6  Barnwell’s  journal,  loc.  cit .;  C.O.  Maps,  Georgia  1,  2,  4,  5,  7,  8.  Sev¬ 
eral  of  these  maps  and  plans  are  reproduced  in  Crown  Collection,  series 
III,  132,  133  f„  135  f.,  137.  See  also  P.R.O.,  M.P.,  G  13  (plan,  1726).  Winsor, 
in  Mississippi  Basin,  p.  135,  incorrectly  described  the  post  as  located  at  the 
forks  of  the  Altamaha,  and  has  been  followed  by  others,  as  Heinrich,  La 
Louisiane,  p.  158. 

7  C.O.  5:360,  C  2  (enclosure). 

8  Barnwell’s  journal,  loc.  cit.-,  endorsed  by  assembly  in  instructions  to 
Yonge  and  Lloyd,  in  C.O.  5 :358,  A  48.  See  C.O.  Maps,  Georgia  3,  for 
Barnwell’s  chart  of  St.  Simon’s  harbor,  September  2,  1721. 

0  JCHA,  July  21,  August  5,  11,  12,  15,  1721;  February  1,  1721/2. 

70  JC,  June  15,  November  24,  1722. 


238 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


George.11  There  was  genuine  anxiety  at  Charles  Town  to  hold 
the  line  of  the  Altamaha.  In  August,  1722,  a  conference  com¬ 
mittee  expressed  a  lively  fear  that  if  the  place  were  deserted  be¬ 
fore  royal  troops  arrived  ‘the  Spanish  or  the  French  would  take 
immediate  possession.’  Barnwell  was  chairman  of  this  commit¬ 
tee,  which  proposed  an  address  to  the  Crown  to  reimburse  the 
province  for  the  outlay  on  the  fort.  At  the  same  time,  in  keep¬ 
ing  with  Barnwell’s  program  as  endorsed  by  the  Board  of 
Trade,  they  advocated  land-grants  for  towns  on  the  Altamaha 
and  Savannah  Rivers.12  But  the  land  policy  of  the  Lords  Pro¬ 
prietors  and  the  dubious  constitutional  status  of  the  colony 
prevented  for  a  number  of  years  this  logical  development  in  a 
defense  policy  of  which  Fort  King  George  itself  represented 
only  the  first  step. 

Though  fears  of  French  intrusion  into  the  region  south  of 
the  Savannah  had  been  the  chief  consideration  dictating  the 
southward  advance,  Fort  King  George  represented,  of  course, 
a  flagrant  intrusion  into  ancient  Spanish  territory.  A  generation 
had  passed  since  mission  bells  had  sounded  over  the  Bocas  de 
Talaje,  but  Spain  had  never  yielded  title  to  Guale.  Barnwell, 
hunting  for  Spanish  figs  and  garlic  among  the  ruins  of  Zapala 
and  Asao,  had  grounds  for  fearing  Spanish  opposition  to  his 
adventure;  indeed,  he  fixed  upon  the  more  sheltered  mainland 
rather  than  St.  Simon’s  for  just  that  reason.13  News  of  the 
invasion  came  to  Benavides  too  late  to  prevent  it,  but  protests 
were  not  long  delayed.  Challenging  France,  Barnwell  and  his 
backers  had  provoked  another  contest  with  Spain  for  Guale,  a 
contest  in  diplomacy  and  war  which  continued  until  1763. 

The  dispute  over  boundaries  was  embittered  by  other  famil¬ 
iar  issues.  Since  the  end  of  the  War  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance, 
Indian  raids  had  continued  along  the  Carolina-Florida  border. 
Already  the  Marquis  Pozobueno,  Spanish  ambassador  at  Lon¬ 
don,  had  complained  that  the  Floridians  ‘could  not  stir  out  of 

“JCHA,  August  12,  15,  1721.  It  was  also  proposed  to  enlist  prisoners 
lately  arrived  from  Havana  to  serve  at  the  Altamaha  River  at  £6  per  month. 
See  also  JC,  August  3,  1722. 

12  JC,  August  2,  1722;  JCHA,  June  19,  1722.  See  ibid.,  June  15,  1722,  for 
message  to  the  Commons  suggesting  that  Barnwell  be  designated  ‘governor’ 
or  ‘lieutenant-governor’  of  Fort  King  George,  ‘which  will  be  a  means  to 
encourage  his  settling  there.’ 

13  Barnwell’s  journal,  loc.  cit. 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORIDA  BORDER 


239 


their  Houses  to  Cultivate  their  Lands,  nor  turn  out  their  Cattle 
without  apparent  danger  from  the  said  Indians.’  Carteret  there¬ 
upon  sent  orders  to  Nicholson,  September  6,  1721,  that  violence 
against  the  Spaniards  and  their  Indians  should  cease,  and 
that  all  treaties  and  conventions  should  be  observed.14  In 
March,  1722,  there  appeared  at  Charles  Town  a  diplomatic 
mission  headed  by  Don  Francisco  Menendez  Marques,  auditor 
of  St.  Augustine,  proposing  to  settle  by  treaty  all  matters  at 
issue.  In  particular,  Menendez  was  instructed  to  secure  regu¬ 
lation  of  partizan  warfare,  and  to  demand  the  return  of  certain 
negro  and  Spanish  prisoners.  Retaliation  was  hinted  if  the  In¬ 
dian  raids  should  continue.  Nicholson  replied  that  he  had  no 
powers  for  negotiating  a  treaty,  and  warmly  resented  the 
charges  of  ill-usage  of  Spanish  prisoners.  In  turn  he  set  up 
counter-claims  for.  the  restoration  of  runaway  slaves  and  of 
prize  vessels  taken  since  the  peace.  Shrewdly  he  demanded  that 
the  Spaniard  define  those  tribes  claimed  as  subjects  of  Florida. 
And  he  expressed  great  surprise  at  another  demand  in  Menen- 
dez’s  memorial  on  which  his  instructions  had  been  silent.  ‘My 
Governour,’  the  Spaniard  had  declared,  ‘is  informed  by  the 
Indians  under  his  Command  of  a  New  Settlement  that  is  made 
by  this  Government  in  the  time  of  the  Suspension  of  Arms 
upon  the  Land  of  the  King  my  Master  near  the  Island  of  St. 
Catherine,  upon  the  Mainland.  It  seems  very  Strange,  and  [he] 
desires  to  know  the  Reason  of  doing  it.’  The  fort,  Nicholson 
retorted,  was  built  under  royal  orders  ‘for  the  better  Securing 
of  those  his  Majesty’s  dominions,’  and  would  be  maintained  so 
long  as  the  King  saw  fit.15 

The  boundary  question,  unsettled  since  1670,  was  at  last 
squarely  raised.  On  Menendez’s  return  Benavides  lost  no  time 
in  reporting  to  the  Council  of  the  Indies  the  recent  English 
usurpation  and  the  uncompromising  attitude  of  South  Carolina. 
Nicholson  he  accused  of  aiming  at  the  capture  of  St.  Augustine, 
in  order  to  command  the  Bahama  Channel.  At  London  Pozo- 

14  C.O.  5 :387,  f.  64;  also  359,  B  62,  and  324:34,  p.  208.  On  a  second 
protest  from  Pozobueno  that  the  grievances  complained  of  were  not  re¬ 
dressed,  Carteret  sent  a  duplicate  of  this  letter,  November  28,  1722  (C.O. 
5:387,  f.  64).  For  one  specific  Spanish  complaint  see  C.O.  5:358,  A  96. 

15  C.O.  5:358,  A  103,  A  104.  See  Benavides  to  Nicholson,  February  11, 
1721,  and  enclosing  letter  to  the  Crown,  April  21,  1722,  in  Brooks  (comp.), 
Unwritten  History ,  pp.  168-71. 


240 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


bueno  protested  vigorously,  stipulating  that  the  fort  at  Talaje 
should  be  demolished  and  none  built  in  its  place  in  the  future. 
Confronted  by  this  peremptory  demand,  and  with  the  vaguest 
notions,  apparently,  of  the  merits  of  the  dispute,  Lord  Carteret 
referred  the  matter  to  the  Board  of  Trade  for  examination  and 
report.16  Nor  were  the  members  of  the  Board  in  a  much  better 
position  to  argue  the  merits  of  the  case,  despite  their  whole¬ 
hearted  support  of  English  pretensions  and  their  own  respon¬ 
sibility  as  authors  of  the  1720  reports.  In  a  brief  representation 
of  December  20,  1722,  the  commissioners  recalled  the  genesis 
of  the  recently  adopted  policy  for  the  southern  frontier.  Cate¬ 
gorically  they  asserted  the  English  title  to  the  land  where  the 
fort  was  built,  as  part  of  the  province  of  South  Carolina.  If 
further  discussion  were  thought  necessary  they  promised  con¬ 
fidently  ‘to  produce  sufficient  proofs  to  verify  the  same.’17  But 
a  covering  letter  to  Carteret  revealed  their  actual  ignorance, 
explaining  that  the  short  and  general  terms  of  the  report  were 
designed  for  Spanish  consumption,  ‘whereby  we  have  reserv’d 
to  Ourselves  an  Opportunity  of  applying  such  particular  Proofs 
arising  from  charters  and  otherwise  as  we  are  already  masters 
of,  as  well  as  those  we  may  further  discover.’  Except  for  the 
dubious  plea  from  the  charters,  the  Board  obviously  had  no 
plausible  legal  case.  But  of  one  weighty  sanction  they  were 
complacently  aware.  ‘We  were  the  rather  induc’d  to  take  this 
Method,’  they  added,  ‘because  His  Majesty  being  in  Possession 
it  will  certainly  be  incumbent  on  the  Spaniards  to  produce 
Proofs  of  their  Title  before  His  Majesty  can  be  under  any 
Necessity  of  justifying  his  own  Right.’18 

Meanwhile  Carteret  had  notified  Nicholson  of  Pozobueno’s 
protest  and  called  for  information.  In  response,  a  committee  of 
both  houses  of  the  assembly  in  May,  1723,  drew  up  a  set  of 
‘Observations,’19  which  constituted  the  chief  English  brief  in 
the  whole  long  drawn  out  dispute,  as  Arredondo  recognized 
when,  in  1742,  he  assailed  its  arguments  in  his  ‘Demonstration 

“Ibid.;  and  C.O.  5:358,  A  62  (December  8,  1722).  On  the  Spanish  dis¬ 
covery  of  the  intrusion  and  the  subsequent  proceedings  in  Spain  and  Florida, 
see  Bolton  (ed.),  Arredondo’s  Historical  Proof  (1925),  pp.  172  fT. 

17  C.O.  5:382,  f.  35  (1). 

18  C.O.  5  :382,  f.  35. 

“JCHA,  May  10,  1723.  C.O.  5  :387,  f.  65. 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORIDA  BORDER 


241 


Historiographica.’20  The  charter,  it  was  asserted,  granted  not 
only  the  Altamaha  River,  but  a  large  territory  to  the  south,21 
and  never  since  had  the  Spanish  possessed  or  settled  any  lands 
on  the  Altamaha.  Here  the  assembly  revealed  an  amazing,  but 
convenient,  ignorance  of  the  extent  of  the  Spanish  missions  in 
Guale  so  late  as  1684.  Since  the  settlement  of  South  Carolina, 
the  English  had  always  regarded  the  Altamaha  as  under  their 
government.  For  forty  years  they  had  traded  with  the  Indians 
of  that  river  without  interruption,  ‘and  Several  of  the  Inhabi¬ 
tants  of  this  Province,  had  houses  and  plantations’  there.  Ignor¬ 
ing  the  treaty  of  1670,  they  remarked  that  the  Spanish  had 
quite  as  good  a  claim  to  Port  Royal  or  to  Charles  Town  as  to 
Altamaha.  Weak  in  law  and  in  history,  the  assembly  found 
firmer  ground  in  its  assertions  of  policy,  reviving  the  argu¬ 
ments  with  which  Barnwell  had  impressed  the  Board  of  Trade 
in  1720.  The  fort,  they  recalled,  had  been  built  by  order  of  the 
King  ‘to  Secure  his  Dominions  in  those  parts  against  the  In- 
croachments  of  the  French.’  A  rival  power  in  control  of  a  river 
which  led  so  far  into  the  continent  could  cut  off  the  whole 
western  trade  of  South  Carolina,  and  in  war  render  the  province 
‘scarce  tenable.’ 

Carolinian  anxiety  was  increased  by  the  persistency  with 
which  the  authorities  of  Florida  pressed  their  grievances,  by 
repeated  missions  to  South  Carolina.  Suspicion  that  these  em¬ 
bassies  covered  designs  against  the  fort  became  a  settled  con¬ 
viction.  In  August,  1722,  Benavides  had  sent  a  captain  and  a 
friar  with  a  body  guard  by  the  inland  passage  to  Charles  Town 
to  demand  restitution  of  ships  and  merchandize  under  the  con¬ 
vention  of  the  Hague,  and  also  the  return  of  Spanish  Indians 
held  as  slaves.  With  the  advice  of  the  assembly  Nicholson  only 
consented  to  exchange  Indian  slaves  for  runaway  negroes,  and 
demanded  the  return  of  English  vessels  and  prisoners  taken 
since  the  peace.  This  reply  the  Board  of  Trade  later  approved. 
The  assembly  demurred  at  the  cost  of  entertaining  such  unbid¬ 
den  guests;  and  Nicholson  insisted  that  future  agents  must 
come  directly  to  Charles  Town  by  sea  and  enter  no  other  har- 

20  Edition  cited  in  note  16. 

21  In  the  committee’s  report  it  was  asserted  ‘that  St.  Augustine  is  within 
the  Proprietors’  charter,’  but  this  was  later  struck  ou*  (JCHA,  May  10, 
1723). 


242 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


bors.22  Despite  this  warning,  in  February,  1724,  an  officer  of 
the  presidio  visited  Fort  King  George,  but  was  promptly  sent 
down  to  Charles  Town  with  his  guard.  ‘We  are  apprehensive,’ 
Nicholson  informed  Carteret,  ‘that  the  Governor  of  St.  Augus¬ 
tine  sent  them  there  as  Spyes  to  see  what  condition  Fort  King 
George  was  in  and  what  other  things  they  could  inform 
themselves  in.’ 

These  and  other  alarms  revived  in  South  Carolina  the  old 
jealousy  of  Florida.  In  December,  1722,  the  assembly  received 
a  report  from  the  Creek  agent  that  the  Spanish  were  inciting 
the  Yamasee  to  attack  Fort  King  George.23  Just  at  this  time 
it  was  rumored  in  America  that  the  surrender  of  Gibraltar 
and  Port  Mahon  to  Spain  was  impending.  Declaring  that  Span¬ 
ish  possession  of  St.  Augustine  was  of  pernicious  consequence 
to  South  Carolina,  the  assembly  proposed  that  instead  of  West 
Indian  colonies  the  equivalent  demanded  should  be  the  con¬ 
tinent  as  far  as  the  Mississippi,  and  also  St.  Augustine.24  Nich¬ 
olson,  who  shared  the  provincial  suspicion  of  the  Spanish,  hoped 
that  in  the  next  war  Fort  King  George  would  provide  a  base 
for  the  conquest  of  Florida.25 

The  importance  which  the  Spanish  on  their  side  attached 
to  the  Altamaha  affair  appeared  in  the  measures  of  the  Council 
of  the  Indies  and  of  Governor  Benavides.  In  1724  the  latter 
received  orders  to  negotiate  at  Charles  Town,  and  to  permit  no 
discussion  of  an  equivalent  for  the  fort.26  But  diplomacy  in 
America  had  to  wait  upon  the  slow  course  of  diplomacy  at 
London.  When,  after  many  months,  no  reply  had  been  vouch¬ 
safed  to  the  demand  for  the  demolition  of  Fort  King  George, 
Pozobueno  pressed  for  an  exact  determination  of  the  Carolina- 
Florida  boundary  under  the  terms  of  the  treaty  of  1670,  with 
its  guarantee  of  existing  possessions  at  that  time.  He  proposed 
that  the  governors  of  the  two  provinces  should  be  empowered 
to  settle  these  limits  by  negotiations  on  the  spot.  On  August 

23  C.O.  5:358,  A  58;  400,  p.  170.  JC,  August  4,  1722.  In  C.O.  5  :382,  no.  34, 
vi,  is  a  copy  of  Nicholson’s  safe-conduct  for  the  seventeen  Spaniards  of  the 
embassy,  requiring  that  they  return  to  St.  Augustine  by  direct  route  in  six¬ 
teen  days,  without  entering  any  harbors  except  in  emergency. 

23  JCHA,  December  8,  1722. 

24  Ibid. 

25  C  O  5  '387  f  60 

38  Arredondo’s  Historical  Proof,  p.  173;  JC,  September  8,  1725. 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORIDA  BORDER 


243 


3,  Newcastle  announced  the  King’s  assent  to  a  conference  of 
governors.  But  he  parried  the  reiterated  claim  for  the  immediate 
destruction  of  Fort  King  George,  agreeing  only  that  it  should 
be  razed  if  it  were  found  to  stand  on  Spanish  soil,  which  he 
was  careful  not  to  concede.27  And  it  was  nearly  a  year  before 
the  authorization  for  a  conference  received  his  signature. 
Meanwhile,  in  December,  1724,  he  transmitted  to  the  Spanish 
ambassador  the  assembly’s  ‘Observations,’  and  explained  the 
delay  in  the  matter  of  the  fort  by  the  expectation  that  Nichol¬ 
son  would  soon  arrive  in  London,  and  the  desire  of  the  King 
to  suspend  judgment  until  the  governor  could  be  questioned.28 
The  Spanish  were  led  to  believe  that  instructions  had  been  sent 
to  the  provincial  council  to  investigate  the  facts  in  consultation 
with  Florida,  but  this  order  was  not  actually  signed  until  June 
2,  1725.  It  authorized,  of  course,  not  a  real  negotiation,  but  a 
joint  inquiry  respecting  boundaries,  the  final  decision  being 
reserved  for  the  King  and  Privy  Council.  Moreover,  this  letter 
was  either  further  delayed  in  transmission,  or,  not  improbably, 
pocketed  by  President  Middleton.  At  all  events  it  was  not  en¬ 
tered  in  the  council’s  journal  until  November,  1725,  after 
another  Spanish  embassy  had  vainly  sought  a  conference  at 
Charles  Town.  Evasion  and  delay  in  diplomacy,  were  not, 
apparently,  a  monopoly  of  the  Spanish.29 

For  the  abortive  negotiation  of  September,  1725,  Benavides 
had  made  elaborate  preparation.  At  St.  Augustine  depositions 
had  been  taken  from  veteran  officers  of  the  presidio  that  the 
English  fort  stood  upon  Spanish  territory,  and  that  they  had 
served  in  the  garrisons  of  Guale,  at  Santa  Catalina,  Zapala, 
Guadalquini,  Santa  Maria,  and  San  Juan,  long  after  1670,  the 
year  of  the  Treaty  of  Madrid.30  As  commissioners  Benavides 
again  named  Don  Francisco  Menendez  Marques,  and  also  the 
commander  of  the  presidio,  Joseph  Primo  de  Rivera.31  Their  in¬ 
structions32  repeated  the  injunction  of  the  Council  of  the  Indies 

21  Ibid. ;  Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.),  Documentos,  pp.  248  f.  Compare  Arre¬ 
dondo’s  Historical  Proof,  p.  174. 

28  Ibid.,  pp.  179-80,  citing  archives  of  St.  Augustine  and  Havana. 

29  C.O.  324:35,  p.  141.  JC,  November  2,  1725.  See  Middleton  to  New¬ 
castle,  December  20,  1725,  in  C.O.  5  :387,  f.  81. 

30  Arredondo’s  Historical  Proof,  pp.  175  f. 

31  Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.),  Documentos,  pp.  243-5. 

32  Ibid.,  pp.  249-  52. 


244 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


that  no  equivalent  for  Fort  King  George  should  be  admitted.  The 
post,  moreover,  must  be  demolished  in  their  presence,  and  no 
English  settlers  or  Indians  allowed  to  remain.  In  settling  the 
boundary  they  were  charged  to  assert  the  Spanish  claim  to 
ancient  Santa  Elena  on  the  north,  and  on  the  west  to  the 
province  of  Apalachicola,  to  the  lands,  that  is,  of  the  Lower 
Creeks.  But  should  opposition  be  raised  on  these  points,  they 
were  to  show  their  instructions  and  demand  a  written  receipt 
to  be  transmitted  to  Spain.  Another  instruction  related  to  the 
prohibition  of  trade  between  Florida  and  Carolina.  To  forestall 
the  expected  dispute  over  runaway  slaves,  by  which  the  English 
had  clouded  former  negotiations,  they  were  to  declare  that  only 
seven  were  held  at  the  presidio.  In  keeping  with  former  royal 
orders  they  were  instructed  to  refuse  the  return  of  slaves,  but 
to  offer  compensation  to  their  owners. 

When  the  Spanish  delegation,  thirty  in  number,  arrived  at 
Charles  Town  in  September,33  they  met  with  a  cautious  recep¬ 
tion.  With  inveterate  suspicion  of  Spanish  faith  where  negro 
slaves  were  concerned,  the  council  ordered  special  care  by  the 
watch  to  prevent  cabals.  If  any  of  the  visitors,  except  the  two 
plenipotentiaries,  were  found  abroad  after  beat  of  tattoo  at 
seven  in  the  evening,  the  marshal  was  directed  to  lodge  them 
in  custody.  The  failure  of  the  mission  was  immediately  apparent 
when  the  Spaniards’  credentials  were  presented.  The  necessary 
powers,  they  were  assured,  had  not  been  received  from  England, 
and  pending  further  negotiations,  the  fort  would  be  maintained. 
The  council,  too,  refused  the  Spaniards’  petition  to  be  permitted 
to  buy  a  sloop  to  carry  them  home,  fearing  that  this  covered  a 
sinister  design  against  the  Altamaha  garrison.  Eagerly  assum¬ 
ing  the  diplomatic  offensive,  the  Carolinians  protested  against 
the  harboring  of  their  slaves  at  St.  Augustine.  Both  in  the 
parleys  and  in  Middleton’s  letter  to  Benavides  much  was  made 
of  this  old  grievance,  the  stock  in  trade  of  the  Carolinians  in 
all  their  border  disputes  with  Florida.  When  the  Spaniards 
talked  with  righteous  indignation  of  the  flouting  of  the  treaty 
of  1670,  the  Carolinians  retorted  that  their  planters  were  un¬ 
justly  robbed  of  their  property  by  the  connivance  of  Spain. 

33  Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  p.  70,  date  given  incorrectly  as 
March,  1725.  Negotiations  in  JC,  September  6-13,  1725.  See  C.O.  5:387,  f. 
80;  also  Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.),  Documentos,  pp.  255-8;  and  Mereness  (ed.), 
Travels,  p.  159. 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORIDA  BORDER 


245 


Addressing  the  assembly  in  November,  1725,  President 
Middleton  characterised  the  boundary  dispute  as  ‘an  Affair  of 
the  utmost  Importance  that  can  possibly  happen  to  this  prov¬ 
ince.’34  Already  he  had  written  to  Nicholson  and  Newcastle 
appealing  for  support  for  the  provincial  policy.  To  the  absent 
governor  he  did  not  need  to  argue  the  value  of  Fort  King 
George.  But  he  described  the  doubtful  posture  of  affairs  among 
the  Lower  Creeks,  who  had  recently  given  insulting  replies  to 
the  talks  of  the  agent.  Abandonment  of  the  fort,  he  declared, 
would  ‘be  owning  that  all  the  Creek  Indians  are  depending  on 
the  Spaniards.’  Instead  of  withdrawing  from  the  Altamaha, 
Creek  policy  demanded  that  the  English  should  build  another 
fort  at  the  forks  of  the  river.35  To  Newcastle  Middleton  ob¬ 
jected  that  he  was  directed  to  settle  the  bounds  under  the  treaty 
of  1670,  ‘at  which  time  the  English  were  in  possession  of  no 
more  land  than  in  and  about  Charles  Towne,  so  that  with  Sub¬ 
mission  I  think  that  the  Spaniards  may  as  well  claime  all  the 
Lands  within  a  few  miles  adjacent,  as  those  lying  on  the  Alla- 
tamahaw  River.’36  On  November  4  a  conference  committee  of 
the  assembly  decided  that  negotiations  must  wait  for  spring 
and  good  weather.37  With  spring,  however,  the  Carolinians 
took  no  steps  to  reopen  the  unwelcome  debate.  Nor  did  New¬ 
castle  exhibit  further  interest  in  the  drawing  of  the  boundary, 
now  that  he  was  apprised  of  the  consequences  of  acceding  to 
Spanish  pressure. 

But  why  did  the  Spanish  neglect  to  revive  the  question  ?  In 
Europe,  Spain  and  England  were  already  headed  towards  war. 
Perhaps  St.  Augustine  was  lulled  into  false  security  by  a  dis¬ 
aster  which  occurred  a  little  later  at  Altamaha.  In  mid-winter 
a  fire  destroyed  the  barracks  and  damaged  the  wooden  defenses 
of  the  makeshift  English  fort.38  Captain  Massey’s  investiga¬ 
tion  at  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  at  War  failed  to  show 
that  the  fire  was  of  incendiary  origin,  but  he  suspected  that  the 
men  were  not  so  active  as  they  might  have  been  in  extinguish¬ 
ing  it,  ‘in  hopes  by  the  destruction  of  the  Fort  they  should  be 

34  JC,  November  2,  1725. 

35  C.O.  5  :387,  f.  80. 

38  Ibid.,  f .  79. 

37  JC,  November  4,  1725. 

38  C.O.  5  :387,  f.  73. 


246 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


delivered  from  the  Miseries  they  had  so  long  suffered.’39  A 
dismal  picture  of  the  hardships  of  the  garrison  was  drawn  by 
the  commander  in  his  report  of  1727,  advocating  removal  to 
Port  Royal,  in  which  he  complained  bitterly  of  the  neglect  of 
the  soldiers  by  the  Carolinians.  Surrounded  by  malarial  marshes, 
Fort  King  George  had  been  little  more  than  a  hospital  of  sick 
and  dying  soldiers.  Unwholesome  food  had  provoked  frequent 
mutinies ;  on  one  occasion  twelve  soldiers  had  decamped  to 
St.  Augustine.  ‘It  might  as  usefully  have  been  placed  in  Japan,’ 
Massey  asserted.  But  Nicholson,  who  knew  something  of  the 
inevitable  hardships  of  frontier  service,  attributed  most  of  the 
troubles  at  Altamaha  to  the  unfitness  of  the  garrison,  ‘old,  In¬ 
firm,  inactive  and  Morose,’  too  lazy  and  mutinous  to  fetch  good 
water  or  make  gardens  to  provide  wholesome  food.40  Middle- 
ton  shared  Nicholson’s  disgust  with  these  ill-assorted  pioneers. 
He  wrote  in  1726  to  the  governor:  ‘I  have  had  a  continual 
plague  and  trouble  with  those  people  of  the  Fort  ever  since 
your  Departure.’41 

After  much  haggling  with  the  assembly,  President  Middle- 
ton  secured  an  ordinance42  in  February,  1726,  advancing  £2000 
currency  as  a  loan  to  the  Crown  for  rebuilding  the  post,  until 
a  permanent  royal  establishment  could  be  made.  He  strongly 
deplored  the  possibility  of  withdrawal  from  the  Altamaha  in 
face  of  the  controversy  with  Spain :  ‘As  possession  gives  a  right 
in  this  case,  so  the  abandoning  of  what  we  have  held  so  many 
years  is  tacitly  giving  that  right  away.’43  The  treasury  was 
empty,  the  tax  bill  for  the  year  already  passed,  so  Middleton 
and  the  council  reluctantly  agreed  to  a  re-issue  of  paper  bills.44 
In  spite  of  opposition  at  home  to  such  practice,  the  ordinance 
was  not  disallowed.  Fort  King  George  was  rebuilt,  and  for  a 
few  months  the  King’s  soldiers  continued  to  hold  the  line  of 
the  Altamaha. 

For  a  few  months  only,  however,  for  in  the  fall  of  1727 
the  garrison  was  withdrawn  to  Port  Royal.  This  retreat  was 

33  C.O.  5  :360,  C  2  (enclosure). 

"C.O.  5:360,  C  8. 

41  C.O.  5  :387,  f.  73. 

43  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  246f. 

43  JC,  February  2,  1725/6. 

44  Ibid. ;  and  see  C.O.  5  :387,  f.  85. 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORIDA  BORDER 


247 


not  the  result  of  Spanish  protests,  though  certainly  Spanish 
border  policy  had  much  to  do  with  it.  The  years  1726  and  1727 
were  marked  by  Indian  raids  along  the  Carolina-Florida  border, 
and  by  increasing  tension  among  the  Creeks.  At  just  this 
period  in  Europe,  Spain  and  England,  with  France  and  Prussia 
also  opposing  Spain,  were  drifting  into  the  brief  and  desultory 
War  of  the  League  of  Hanover.45  Spain  declared  war  in  Febru¬ 
ary,  1727,  and  began  a  languid  siege  of  Gibraltar.  But  hos¬ 
tilities  were  ended  before  the  year  was  out,  and  two  years 
later  Spain  came  to  terms  with  France  and  England  in  the 
Treaty  of  Seville.  In  America,  except  for  the  attempt  of  1726 
at  Puerto  Bello  and  Sir  Charles  Wager’s  efforts  to  capture 
the  plate  fleet,  England  undertook  nothing  offensive.  To  be 
sure,  an  expedition  against  the  Spanish  West  Indies  with 
colonial  assistance  was  canvassed.  Carolina,  a  memorialist  as¬ 
serted,  could  render  no  aid,  for  the  Spaniards  would  find  them 
business  enough  at  home.  Alluding  to  Spanish  intrigues  among 
their  slaves,  he  declared  ‘that  either  the  People  of  Carolina 
must  take  St.  Augustin,  or  St.  Augustin  will  take  them.’46  This 
was  hyperbole,  but  there  was  reason  for  dread  at  Charles  Town. 
The  Creek  problem  was  never  more  vexing.  Port  Royal  lay 
open  to  the  enemy,  and  partizan  warfare  again  ravaged  the 
southern  plantations. 

In  1728  President  Middleton  furnished  Newcastle  with  a 
circumstantial  account  of  a  whole  series  of  border  forays  of 
the  past  two  years.47  These,  he  protested,  ‘may  be  rather  termed 
Robberys,  Murders,  and  Piracys.’  The  militia  were  constantly 
under  arms,  plantations  were  going  to  wreck,  the  planters 
again  threatened  to  desert  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  prov¬ 
ince.  The  Yamasee  tribe  especially  was  a  thorn  in  the  side  of 
Carolina.  Though  reduced  to  three  villages  close  to  St.  Augus¬ 
tine48  they  had  lost  none  of  their  skill  as  marauders.  They  were 
frequently  joined  by  recalcitrant  Lower  Creeks,  especially  the 
Indians  of  Cherokeeleechee’s  town,  and  by  negroes,  the  runa- 

45  Cambridge  Modern  History,  VI.  59  f.  Bolton  and  Marshall,  Coloni¬ 
sation  of  North  America,  pp.  359  f. 

40  C.O.  5  :4,  no.  36. 

47  C.O.  5  :387,  f.  167. 

4SJC,  August  4,  9,  1727.  Compare  Swanton,  Early  History,  p.  104,  where 
four  towns  are  named. 


248 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


ways  whose  retention  in  Florida  had  been  a  constant  article  of 
complaint  against  the  Spaniards.  The  Carolinians  cited  evi¬ 
dence  in  the  reports  of  English  captives  in  Florida  that  these 
raiders  were  outfitted  at  St.  Augustine,  and  usually  led  by  two 
or  three  soldiers,  and  that  on  their  return  they  exchanged  scalps 
for  pieces-of-eight.  Repeated  incursions  produced  a  panic 
among  the  southern  settlers,  especially  of  Granville  county, 
where  the  nightmare  of  1715  was  not  easily  forgotten.  In  June, 
1727,  they  petitioned  the  province  for  removal  of  the  inde¬ 
pendent  company  to  a  position  near  Beaufort.49 

In  the  midst  of  these  alarms  came  news  of  a  fresh  disaster 
to  a  party  of  traders  near  Fort  King  George.  Mathew  Small¬ 
wood  had  lately  established  a  trading-post  at  the  forks  of  the 
Altamaha,  and  had  been  engaged  by  Middleton  to  win  over 
the  Yamasee  to  the  English  trade  and  alliance.  With  seven 
other  traders  he  was  on  his  way  to  his  post  by  periago  when, 
on  July  23  or  24,  he  was  attacked  by  a  gang  of  Yamasees  and 
Creeks.  Smallwood  and  four  companions  were  scalped,  and  the 
rest  carried  prisoners  to  St.  Augustine.  The  store  at  the  Forks 
was  broken  open  and  despoiled.50  The  Smallwood  affair  seemed 
to  prove  the  uselessness  of  Fort  King  George;  it  aroused, 
moreover,  the  liveliest  fears  of  a  general  Indian  rising.  The 
scout-boats  were  ordered  to  cruise  constantly  between  Port 
Royal  and  the  Altamaha,  and  the  assembly  was  hastily  con¬ 
vened  to  deal  with  the  border  crisis.51 

Two  tasks  confronted  the  assembly:  to  protect  the  border 
plantations,  and  to  punish  the  enemy  Indians,  and  so  check  the 
spreading  disloyalty  among  the  Lower  Creeks.  The  obvious 
solution  of  the  border  question  was  to  transfer  the  royal  troops 
to  Port  Royal.  Already  the  council  had  taken  Massey’s  advice 
and  had  agreed  that  a  detachment  should  be  posted  there.52 
Massey,  however,  favored  the  removal  of  the  whole  company, 
and  it  was  he,  according  to  Middleton,  who  converted  the  as¬ 
sembly  to  this  measure.  Middleton  himself  was  probably  per¬ 
suaded  to  agree  by  a  report  brought  in  by  traders,  late  in 
August,  that  seven  or  eight  periagoes  were  fitting  out  at  St. 

40  JC,  June  15,  1727. 

00  C.O.  5  :387,  f.  167.  JC,  August  1,  2,  3,  1727. 

“  JC,  August  2,  3,  24,  1727. 

“  Ibid.,  June  15,  17,  1727. 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORIDA  BORDER 


249 


Augustine  to  attack  Port  Royal  and  on  their  return  to  destroy 
the  fort.  But  the  council  sought  to  throw  responsibility  for 
the  retreat  upon  the  King’s  officer.  After  Massey  had  objected 
to  the  first  phrasing  of  the  request,  these  words  were  used :  ‘If 
you  believe  it  will  not  be  of  any  Injury  to  his  Majesty’s  Claim 
to  the  River  Altamaha.’53 

More  important,  it  seemed,  at  the  moment,  than  a  show  of 
possession  on  the  coast,  was  actual  domination  of  the  interior 
tribes.  With  Port  Royal  protected  by  the  King’s  men,  the  Caro¬ 
linians,  by  an  aggressive  Indian  policy,  might  hope  to  become 
once  more  really  supreme  upon  the  Florida  and  Louisiana 
borders.  In  September,  accordingly,  plans  were  set  on  foot  for 
two  expeditions  to  complete  the  half-conquest  of  the  southern 
Indians.54  One  was  designed  to  annihilate  the  remnant  of  the 
Yamasee.  The  other,  the  principal  campaign,  as  first  planned, 
was  meant  to  overawe  the  Creek  confederation,  and  to  put  an 
end  to  recurrent  Creek  intrigues  with  the  Spanish  and  French. 
Only  the  first  expedition  was  actually  carried  through.  In 
February,  1728,  Colonel  John  Palmer,  a  member  of  the  Com¬ 
mons  House  and  a  veteran  of  the  great  Indian  war,  embarked 
upon  the  campaign  in  Florida.55  Meanwhile,  the  major  expedi¬ 
tion  was  postponed,  and  Colonel  Charlesworth  Glover  was  sent 
up  to  the  Creeks  to  make  a  last  effort,  by  diplomacy,  to  win 
them  wholly  to  the  English  league.56 

A  picturesque  version  of  the  inception  of  Palmer’s  raid 
appeared  in  a  letter  of  Alexander  Parris,  the  province  treas¬ 
urer,  to  the  factor  of  the  Royal  Asiento  Company  at  Havana. 
Early  in  February,  1728,  he  said,  some  returned  prisoners  from 
St.  Augustine  brought  ‘a  very  impudent  sawcy  letter’  from  the 
Spanish  governor,  with  a  verbal  query  whether  Middleton  was 
asleep  ‘that  he  suffer’d  his  Frontier  plantations  to  be  cut  off, 

“3  Ibid.,  August  25,  30,  31,  September  1,  22,  30,  1727.  In  the  last  entry 
Ralph  Izard  had  it  recorded  in  the  minutes  ‘that  he  is  against  Removing 
the  Garrison.’ 

54  Ibid.,  August  3,  25,  26,  31,  September  1,  12,  13,  15,  16,  21,  22,  23,  29, 
30,  1727 ;  February  1,  1728.  The  act  of  September  30  is  not  in  Cooper,  but 
appears  in  C.O.  5:412  (83). 

55C.O.  5:387,  ff.  167-97,  passim  (Middleton’s  account  to  Newcastle,  June 
13,  1728,  with  enclosures  of  letters  by  Alexander  Parris  and  Wargent 
Nicholson,  the  muster  roll,  etc.).  See  also  Boston  News  Letter,  April  25, 
1728. 

56  See  below,  pp.  271-2. 


250 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


and  his  people  carry’d  away  prisoners  by  Indians.’  ‘I  was  in 
company  with  the  Governor  when  this  message  was  Delivered 
him,’  wrote  Parris,  ‘on  which  he  smiled,  and  gave  orders  im¬ 
mediately’  for  Palmer’s  despatch.  With  two  companies,  each 
of  fifty  whites,  and  about  a  hundred  friendly  Indians,  Palmer 
took  the  inland  passage  to  Florida.  Landing  at  San  Juan’s, 
he  left  a  guard  for  the  boats,  and  advanced  upon  St.  Augustine. 
He  had  learned,  meanwhile,  that  the  Yamasee  had  taken  refuge 
in  their  strong  town  of  Nombre  de  Dios,  within  half  a  mile  of 
the  Spanish  castle.  Before  dawn  on  March  9  he  attacked.  About 
thirty  Indians  were  killed,  and  others  wounded,  besides  fifteen 
who  were  taken  prisoners.  ‘Instead  of  our  Governour  being 
asleep,’  exulted  Parris,  ‘they  found  the  Governour  of  St.  Au¬ 
gustine  so.’  But  the  rest  of  the  Yamasee  now  took  refuge  in 
the  Spanish  fort.  For  three  days  the  little  army  lingered  in 
front  of  St.  Augustine,  hoping  to  complete  the  destruction  of 
the  Yamasee.  According  to  English  report,  the  Spanish  con¬ 
tinually  fired  their  guns  at  them,  but  attempted  no  sortie,  and 
Palmer  in  turn  refrained  from  attacking  the  Spanish  town. 
Before  retiring,  however,  he  laid  Nombre  de  Dios  waste,  burn¬ 
ing  the  chapel  as  well  as  the  Indian  town.  Another  fortified 
Yamasee  village  he  had  to  leave  unspoiled  because  it  was  com¬ 
manded  by  the  guns  of  the  fort.  But  the  extent  of  his  victory 
was  greater  than  the  petty  Indian  casualties  and  the  few  pris¬ 
oners  would  indicate.  Prestige  was  a  great  imponderable  in 
the  rivalries  of  the  American  wilderness.  Spanish  Indians  had 
been  punished  under  the  walls  of  St.  Augustine,  and  hence¬ 
forth  Yamasee  was  not  so  much  a  name  of  terror  to  the  Eng¬ 
lish  borderers.  ‘We  have  now  Ballanc'd  accounts  with  them,’ 
Parris  declared,  ‘and  it’s  my  opinion  that  they  never  will  come 
neare  us  more.’57  English  prestige  was  also  restored  among 
the  interior  tribes,  for  news  of  Palmer’s  exploit  had  come  at  a 
critical  moment  in  Glover’s  negotiations,  and  had  helped  to  turn 
the  wavering  scale  of  Lower  Creek  policy  once  more  toward 

57  See  JCHA,  March  23,  1728,  and  JC,  April  5,  for  references  to  Palmer’s 
success.  A  Spanish  version  of  the  affair  is  in  Swanton,  Early  History,  p. 
341.  In  April  the  Commons  House  proposed  that  Palmer’s  force  be  sent 
again  to  Florida  to  complete  the  destruction  of  the  Yamasee,  but  Middleton 
replied  that  it  was  disbanded,  and  the  articles  of  pacification  signed  with 
Spain  (JCHA,  April  4,  1728;  JC,  April  15,  16,  1728). 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORIDA  BORDER 


251 


peace  and  alliance  with  Great  Britain.58  Never  since  1715  had 
the  situation  on  the  Florida  border  been  more  favorable  than 
in  the  years  1728-1732  for  another  English  advance. 

Meanwhile,  in  England,  events  were  preparing  an  effective 
impulse  for  the  occupation  of  Guale.  Fort  King  George  had 
been  abandoned,  but  under  circumstances  which  made  probable 
a  reassertion  of  English  control  in  that  part  of  Carolina  within 
the  near  future.  The  Board  of  Trade,  certainly,  was  thoroughly 
committed  to  the  retention  of  the  Altamaha  border.  When  the 
Board  first  learned  of  the  proposed  removal  of  the  independent 
company,  Nicholson  was  promptly  consulted.  The  aged  gov¬ 
ernor  urged  that  in  spite  of  the  emergency  a  detachment  should 
remain  at  the  Altamaha  to  keep  possession,  and  that  an  engi¬ 
neer  should  go  over  from  England  to  fix  a  proper  site  for  a 
permanent  establishment  ‘to  answer  His  late  Majesty’s  inten¬ 
tion  of  securing  the  property  and  Trade  of  the  said  River  from 
the  French  and  the  Spaniards.’59  This  procedure  the  Board 
endorsed  in  a  representation  of  December  1,  1727,60  ‘the  Rea¬ 
sons  being  at  present  rather  Stronger  for  Maintaining  of  this 
Fort  than  they  were  at  first  for  the  Erecting  of  it.’  Though 
nothing  was  done  immediately,  in  1730  the  reoccupation  of  the 
Altamaha  was  made  an  item  in  the  instructions  to  Robert 
Johnson,  and  also  the  colonization  of  that  river  and  of  the 
Savannah.  Soon  the  Board’s  plan  for  southward  expansion 
from  Port  Royal  was  transformed  into  the  project  for  the 
march  colony  of  Georgia.  When,  in  1736,  Oglethorpe  built 
Frederica  on  St.  Simon’s  Island,  he  was  carrying  to  completion 
the  ideas  of  Barnwell,  Nicholson,  and  the  Board  of  Trade. 

In  1728  the  negotiations  with  Spain  which  led  to  the  Treaty 
of  Seville  were  about  to  begin.  In  May,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
called  upon  the  Board  for  a  report  upon  the  English  posses¬ 
sions  in  America  which  were  disputed  by  Spain,  specifying  the 
Bahamas,  Campeche,  and  Fort  King  George.  In  preparing  its 
reply  the  Board  took  account  of  a  number  of  papers  submitted 
by  persons  in  England  claiming  special  knowledge  of  the  south¬ 
ern  frontier.61  The  Proprietors’  secretary,  Shelton,  asserted 

r,s  See  below,  p.  272. 

“  C.O.  S  :360,  C  8. 

00  C.O.  5  :383,  no.  30  ii. 

61  C.O.  S  :360,  C  21,  C  22,  C  23,  C  24,  C  25. 


252 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


that  ‘tho  the  Inhabitants  usually  reckoned  the  Bounds  of  Caro¬ 
lina  to  extend  no  further  than  St.  Maria  River ;  yet  by  persual 
of  Mr.  Nairne’s  Mapp  and  other  more  antient  Mapps,  I  find 
that  the  Fort  of  St.  Augustine  is  included  within  the  Proprie¬ 
tors’  Charter.’  He  cited  the  occupation  of  the  forks  of  the 
Altamaha  as  a  basis  for  Carolinian  claims,  as  did  also  Robert 
Johnson,  Francis  Yonge,  and  Samuel  Wragg  in  another  paper 
of  information.  The  merchant  Godin  thought  that  ‘the  Inhabi¬ 
tants  always  took  the  Alatamaha  River  to  be  a  naturall  boundary 
between  us.’  There  was  general  agreement  that  the  Spaniards 
had  not  for  many  years  enjoyed  any  control  farther  northward, 
and  that  the  maintenance  of  an  advanced  southern  border  was 
imperative  in  face  of  the  French  as  well  as  the  Spaniards. 
One  Captain  John  Bowdler  gave  an  eye-witness’s  description  of 
Fort  King  George.  On  June  20,  1728,  the  Board  transmitted  to 
Newcastle  a  representation  and  a  report;  a  copy  of  the  latter 
was  furnished  to  the  English  plenipotentiaries.62  In  these  docu¬ 
ments  appeared  once  more  the  familiar  arguments  expounded 
by  Dr.  Coxe,  and  by  the  assembly  in  its  ‘Observations’  of  1723. 
Ignoring  the  Spanish  missions  in  Guale,  the  Board  gave  a 
forced  interpretation  to  the  treaty  of  1670,  which  was  held  to 
confirm  not  merely  actual  possessions  of  that  date,  but  also  the 
charter  grants  to  Heath  and  the  Lords  Proprietors.  Against 
these  grants  the  Spaniards  had  never  protested,  and  under  all 
of  them  settlements  had  been  made.  If  Spain  would  not  admit 
‘that  planting  one  part  of  a  Province  secures  the  Title  to  the 
whole,  any  Nation,’  the  Board  contended,  ‘is  at  liberty  and  may 
settle  the  remaining  part  of  Florida,’  outside  St.  Augustine, 
the  only  place  over  which  the  Spaniards  had  maintained  pos¬ 
session.  With  these  papers  went  also  a  schedule  of  losses  suf¬ 
fered  by  English  vessels  since  1718. 

In  the  Treaty  of  Seville,  however,  American  boundary  ques¬ 
tions  were  left  for  later  settlement.  In  1730  three  British  com¬ 
missioners  were  named  for  the  negotiation,  Benjamin  Keene, 
Arthur  Stert,  and  John  Goddard.  They  were  instructed  to  in¬ 
sist  that  all  disputed  limits  in  America  should  be  settled  in 
accordance  with  information  furnished  by  the  Board  of  Trade, 
which  supplied  copies  of  the  report  and  representation  of  1728. 

62  C.O.  5  :383,  no.  32  ii. 


THE  CAROLINA-FLORIDA  BORDER 


253 


To  Newcastle  the  Board  in  August,  1730,  suggested  a  reword¬ 
ing  of  the  instructions.  Instead  of  the  phrase,  ‘the  limits  be¬ 
tween  our  province  of  South  Carolina  and  the  King’s  province 
of  Florida’  they  would  insert :  ‘the  limits  of  our  Province  of 
South  Carolina.’  ‘We  are  far  from  acknowledging,’  they  ex¬ 
plained,  ‘that  Florida  belongs  to  the  King  of  Spain.’63 

Though  nothing  developed  from  this  proposed  negotiation, 
it  had  served  to  draw  from  the  Board  of  Trade  another  un¬ 
compromising  assertion  of  the  English  claim  to  Guale.  Al¬ 
ready,  in  fact,  the  Board  had  evolved  the  logical  sequel  to  this 
repeated  claim,  a  program  for  the  effective  occupation  of  the 
debatable  land  between  the  Savannah  and  the  Altamaha. 


Ibid.,  no.  32  iii. 


CHAPTER  XI 


International  Rivalries  in  the  Old  Southwest 

1715-1730 

The  Yamasee  War  had  set  the  stage  for  international  rival¬ 
ries  in  the  old  Southwest  throughout  the  colonial  era.  For  the 
southern  Indians  it  was  the  most  disturbing  event  since  the 
coming  of  the  whites,  followed  as  it  was,  immediately,  by  the 
wholesale  removal  of  the  hostile  Indians  from  the  South  Caro¬ 
lina  border.  The  war,  and  this  migration,  promoted  a  further 
amalgamation  of  tribes,  Muskhogean  and  non-Muskhogean, 
into  that  remarkable  league,  the  Creek  confederation.  More¬ 
over,  in  the  presence  of  the  three-sided  rivalries  of  England, 
France,  and  Spain,  there  occurred  a  significant  reorientation  of 
Creek  policy. 

For  a  generation  past  South  Carolina  had  sought  to  con¬ 
solidate  a  double  bulwark  of  Indian  allies  in  the  zone  of  the 
Savannah  and  Altamaha  Rivers,  a  region  now  completely  de¬ 
serted.  Eater,  a  few  fugitive  Chickasaw  were  induced  to  settle 
upon  the  Savannah,  but  all  efforts  failed  to  draw  back  the 
Yamasee  and  Creeks.  In  the  new  provincial  defense  system 
border  forts  and  rangers  were  substitutes  for  sentry-towns  of 
friendly  Indians.  Inevitably,  too,  the  dispeopling  of  the  Sav- 
annah-Altamaha  country  led  to  schemes  for  English  settlement 
on  that  advanced  frontier.  The  Indian  retreat,  then,  furnished 
the  occasion  and  the  setting  for  the  projects  of  Montgomery, 
Barnwell,  Purry,  and  ultimately  Oglethorpe. 

‘In  1716  the  Ocheese  Creek  Indians  with  the  Cowetas, 
Savanas,  Hogologees  [Yuchi]  and  Oconees  and  Apalachees 
and  several  remnants  of  other  small  tribes  moved  to  this  river. 
They  are  now  at  peace  with  us  but  suffer  the  French  as  well  as 
us  to  trade  with  them.  They  are  in  all  about  1000  men,  the 
most  warlike  Indians  in  these  parts.’  Thus  a  legend  on  a  con¬ 
temporary  English  map1  described  the  return  of  the  Creeks 
with  part  of  their  confederates  to  their  old  land  of  Apalachicola, 
on  the  Chattahoochee,  at  the  meeting  of  the  trails  from  Charles 
Town,  Apalache,  and  Mobile.  No  other  region  in  the  South, 

1  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7. 

[254] 


sy 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


255 


henceforth,  was  so  much  the  theatre  of  international  intrigue. 
Meanwhile,  other  allies,  more  completely  committed  to  Spain, 
had  fled  farther  southward.  They  established  a  new  border  for 
Florida  from  the  St.  John’s  River  to  Apalache  Bay,  the  forks 
of  the  Apalachicola,  and  Santa  Maria  de  Galve.  Most  of  the 
Yamasee  took  shelter  near  the  presidio  of  St.  Augustine.  In 
1727  they  were  settled  in  three  neighboring  towns:  Tolemato, 
where  the  Huspaw  and  Altamaha  people  lived  together,  Nombre 
de  Dios,  and  Pocotaligo.2  Their  skill  in  border  forays,  devel¬ 
oped  under  English  tutelage,  was  still  in  requisition,  but  now 
for  scalping  and  negro-stealing  raids  against  the  plantations 
of  Port  Royal  and  Pon  Pon.  For  several  years  their  usual 
partners  in  these  incursions  were  the  Creeks  of  Cherokee- 
leechee’s  town,  migrants  from  the  Palachacola  Town  of  the  old 
Carolina  border.  Contemporary  maps  showed  the  fort  which 
the  Apalachicola  built  in  1716  at  the  confluence  of  the  Flint 
and  Chattahoochee  Rivers.3  The  Apalache  were  at  first  widely 
dispersed.  Some  found  shelter  with  the  Creeks,  some  near 
Pensacola,  others  joined  their  tribesmen  who  had  fled  from 
Moore  in  1703  to  Mobile.4 

With  these  changes  in  the  map  of  the  southern  Indian  coun¬ 
try  occurred  also  a  great  revolution  in  wilderness  politics.  The 
eclipse  of  English  prestige,  for  the  moment  complete,  was  re¬ 
flected  in  the  enhanced  influence  of  the  Spanish  and  the  French. 
In  the  midst  of  the  war  Creeks  and  Yamasee  had  resorted  to 
St.  Augustine  and  Pensacola.  They  had  been  eagerly  welcomed 
and  supplied  with  trading  goods  and  ammunition.  In  1717  the 
Spanish  achieved  a  master-stroke  of  diplomacy.  Seven  Apalache 
and  Creek  chiefs  were  sent  from  Pensacola  to  Mexico  to  give 
their  allegiance  to  the  King  of  Spain  in  the  person  of  his  vice¬ 
roy.5  The  Choctaw  and  the  Mississippi  tribes  in  the  West  re¬ 
verted  to  the  French  league.  Bienville  in  1715  had  hastened  to 
extend  the  existing  peace  with  the  Alabama  to  the  other  divi- 

2JC,  August  4,  9,  1727  (testimony  of  the  Squirrel  King  of  the  Chicka- 
saws  regarding  a  recent  raid).  Cf.  Swanton,  Early  History,  p.  104. 

3  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7;  Florida,  2.  Compare  Popple  (1733) 
and  Mitchell  (1755). 

4  Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.),  Documentos,  p.  228;  Swanton,  Early  History, 
pp.  124  f. 

5  Ibid.,  pp.  lOlf.  (from  Brooks  transcripts);  Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.), 
Documentos,  pp.  238-42;  Barcia,  Ensayo  cronologico,  p.  330;  JBT,  July 
15,  1716.  C.O.  5  : 1265,  Q  152. 


256 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


sions  of  the  Upper  Creeks.6  Now  for  the  first  time  the  Lower 
Creeks  also  came  within  the  effective  orbit  of  French  policy. 
The  key  to  the  Creek  country  and  the  most  valuable  strategic 
position  on  the  Carolina-Louisiana  border  was  within  French 
grasp.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the  summer  of  1717  that  Fort 
Toulouse  aux  Alibamons  was  actually  built.7 

The  establishment  of  this  post  had  been  approved  in  1714, 
before  the  Indian  revolt,  but  had  been  repeatedly  postponed  for 
lack  of  troops  and  supplies,  and  because  Cadillac  frowned  upon 
the  schemes  of  Bienville  and  Duclos.  Had  it  been  started  imme¬ 
diately  after  the  rising,  Cadillac  argued,  he  would  have  been 
accused  of  instigating  the  Carolina  massacres.  He  still  thought 
it  imprudent  in  1716  to  risk  French  lives  to  the  faith  of  their 
old  Indian  enemies.  But  this  year  saw  the  launching  of  a  new 
aggressive  American  policy  by  the  Regency,  and  the  appoint¬ 
ment  of  Lespinay  and  Hubert  as  governor  and  commissioneur 
ordonnateur.  Thoroughly  convinced  that  the  English  aimed  to 
oust  the  French  from  America,  the  Conseil  de  Marine  de¬ 
scribed  Louisiana  as  ‘une  espece  de  garde  avancee  sur  les  colo¬ 
nies  anglaises.’  Colonists  were  recruited,  troops  despatched. 
Eight  posts,  later  reduced  to  four,  were  decreed.  In  Louisiana 
the  new  officials  hastened  the  Alabama  expedition,  for  there, 
they  determined,  was  the  most  pressing  need  of  frontier  defense. 
Late  in  July,  1717,  twenty  French  soldiers  under  the  lieutenant 
La  Tour  arrived  at  the  forks,  and  on  the  point  of  land  at  the 
confluence  of  the  Coosa  and  Tallapoosa  rivers  erected  the  new 
eastern  outpost  of  Louisiana  towards  the  English  colonies.  The 
French  had  come  none  too  soon.  At  the  end  of  August,  English 
emissaries  appeared  among  the  neighboring  Talapoosa  to  re¬ 
open  the  Charles  Town  trade.  A  month  later,  La  Tour  believed, 
he  must  have  failed,  and  the  English  have  seized  control  again 
of  the  whole  country  of  the  Upper  Creeks.8  With  the  building 

6  Arch.  Nat.,  col.,  C13,  A  3,  ff.  830  f. ;  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  July, 
1715,  et  seq.  Compare  Penicaut,  in  Margry  (ed.),  Decouvertes,  V.  511. 

7  Much  confusion  exists,  even  in  contemporary  records,  regarding  this 
date.  Penicaut,  in  Margry,  Decouvertes,  V.  511,  said  1713;  Present  State  of 
Great  Britain,  1755,  p.  26,  1714,  etc.  C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7,  shows 
‘A  French  fort  at  the  Halbamas  usurped  by  them  1715’;  and  the  South 
Carolina  assembly  in  March,  1716,  reported  a  French  fort  there  (C.O. 
5:1265,  Q  72).  Possibly  the  seizure  of  an  English  trading  factory  at  the 
forks  led  to  the  confusion. 

8  Arch.  Nat.,  col..  C13,  A  3,  ff.  780,  791,  797-8;  A  4,  ff.  54-62,  64,  211-31, 
499-507,  515  f.,  567-9;  A  5,  ff.  229-36,  517;  Marine,  B\  IX,  ff.  274  f. ;  Hein¬ 
rich,  La  Louisiane,  pp.  lxxii-lxxix. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


257 


of  Fort  Toulouse,  and  the  reappearance  of  the  English  traders, 
there  began,  in  1717,  the  sharpest  sort  of  triangular  contest  by 
soldiers  and  traders  and  Indian  agents  for  the  Creek  trade  and 
alliance.  Until  the  establishment  of  Georgia,  and  for  many  years 
after,  the  diplomacy  of  the  southern  frontier  largely  revolved 
upon  this  pivot. 

The  Creeks  were  the  last  of  Carolina’s  foes  to  consent  to 
peace.  The  first  proposals,  from  an  Anglophile  faction,  were 
made  in  the  spring  of  1717,  when  John  Chester,  a  trader 
long  since  given  up  as  dead,  came  down  to  Charles  Town 
with  two  Coweta  headmen.  They  promised  to  surrender  their 
prisoners  and  plunder,  and  Brims  was  assured  of  a  safe-con¬ 
duct  to  the  Ponds  garrison.  Soon,  however,  it  was  rumored 
that  the  powerful  and  wily  Emperor  knew  nothing  of  these 
parleys.  But  Captain  Jones,  sent  up  by  the  governor,  found  him 
friendly;  June,  he  reported,  would  see  the  chiefs  at  Charles 
Town.  Meanwhile  the  Spanish  faction  had  been  busy,  and 
Seepeycoffee,  son  of  Brims,  and  other  chiefs  had  run  down  to 
St.  Augustine.  Danger  from  the  north  also  threatened  the 
incipient  peace.  The  Senecas,  it  was  learned  from  New  York, 
were  raising  an  army  to  attack  their  old  foes  the  Cherokee  and 
Catawba.  Jones,  returning  from  the  Chattahoochee,  reported 
the  Creeks  in  alliance  with  the  Iroquois.  Spotswood  joined  in 
urging  cooperation  from  New  York  to  hold  the  Senecas  in 
leash.  In  all  this  intrigue  the  hand  of  France  was  clearly  seen. 
To  add  to  the  anxiety,  only  one  chief,  Bocachee,  came  in  from 
Coweta.  Peace  could  not  be  made,  he  explained,  until  the  corn 
was  ripe.9 

It  was  this  emergency  which  prompted  the  despatch  of  the 
extraordinary  peace  mission  of  1717,  under  two  veteran  fron¬ 
tiersmen,  Theophilus  Hastings,  public  factor  among  the  Chero¬ 
kee,  and  the  trader  John  Musgrove.  With  a  caravan  of  pack- 
horses  and  eight  or  ten  men  they  were  welcomed  at  Coweta  in 
July.  The  leaders  of  the  pro-Spanish  faction  were  still  absent. 
Leaving  two  traders  on  guard,  the  agents  pressed  on  westward, 
to  find  the  French  at  Alabama  forks.  Though  challenged  by  a 
French  trader  at  Tukabahchee,  they  won  over  the  Abikha  and 
the  important  Talapoosa  towns.  Lespinay  had  sent  soldiers, 

9C.O.  5:1265,  Q  121,  126,  131.  JCHA,  April  23,  May  24,  29,  31,  Tune  7, 
14,  15,  27,  1717. 


258 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


but  in  spite  of  Bienville’s  urging  had  neglected  to  furnish  the 
essential  Indian  presents.  Soon  English  trading- factories 
appeared  upon  both  rivers  above  the  forks.10 

Meanwhile,  civil  war  threatened  along  the  Chattahoochee. 
In  July,  some  sixty  Lower  Creek  and  Apalache  headmen  and 
warriors  had  been  regaled  at  St.  Augustine,  among  others 
Seepeycoffee,  the  war  captain  Talichaliche,  and  Adrian,  the 
Christian  Apalache  chief.  With  them  returned  a  dozen  soldiers 
under  Lieutenant  Diego  de  Pena.  Pena  was  charged  to  buy 
horses  and  fix  the  site  of  the  frontier  fort  which  Ayala  now 
proposed  to  build  in  Apalachicola,  nearly  thirty  years  after 
Spanish  troops  had  withdrawn  from  that  province.  Struggling 
across  flooded  lowlands  to  the  down-river  towns,  Pena  in  Sep¬ 
tember  learned  of  the  recent  exploits  of  the  English  agents. 
To  the  loyalists  he  purveyed  Spanish  whiskey,  and  in  council 
they  determined  to  send  the  Carolinians  bound  to  St.  Augustine. 
But  Kasihta  and  Sawokli  towns  had  not  joined  in  the  Spanish 
‘talk,’  and  Coweta  was  divided,  with  the  Emperor  shielding  the 
English.  When  at  last  Pena  was  admitted  to  Coweta,  Brims 
evaded  his  reproaches.  He  proposed  to  reconcile  all  his  white 
friends,  Spanish  and  English.  After  protracted  debates  and 
obscure  plots  and  counterplots,  Pena  withdrew  to  St.  Augus¬ 
tine  under  escort  of  the  dissident  Creeks.  The  conflict  had 
divided  the  nation  into  hostile  parties.  A  new  migration  of  the 
Apalache  and  certain  of  the  Lower  Creeks  nearer  Florida  oc¬ 
curred.  Pena  urged  that  the  new  fort  be  built  not  in  Apalachi¬ 
cola  but  in  Apalache,  to  encourage  the  repeopling  of  that 
frontier.  In  1718  Ayala  sent  Primo  de  Rivera  to  establish  the 
presidio  of  San  Marcos.  But  only  two  Apalache  villages  could 
be  induced  to  re-colonize  there.  The  fort,  however,  furnished  a 
link  with  Pensacola,  and  a  base  for  Spanish  influence  among 
the  Lower  Creeks.11 

10C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7.  In  1723  the  South  Carolina  council 
examined  two  deserters  from  Fort  Toulouse,  who  declared  that  the  French 
there  had  ‘no  Trade  with  the  Indians  who  goes  all  to  the  Okfuskees  to 
Trade  with  the  English,  they  sell  Ammunition  to  the  Indians  for  provisions; 
a  very  little  is  planted  by  such  as  are  discharged  from  the  fort’  (JC,  Feb¬ 
ruary  11,  1723).  See  also  La  Harpe,  Journal  historique,  August,  1721,  re¬ 
garding  a  mutiny  at  Fort  Toulouse;  and  Mereness  (ed.),  Travels,  p.  200. 

11  Pena’s  narrative  in  Serrano  y  Sanz  (ed.),  Docnmentos,  pp.  227-37; 
Barcia,  Ensayo  cronologico,  pp.  329,  336,  344,  347  f. ;  reports  of  Ayala  and 
Vega  in  Swanton,  Early  History,  pp.  125,  127;  Arch.  Nat.,  col.,  C13,  A  5, 
ff.  117  f„  119;  JCHA,  June  15,  29,  December  6,  1717;  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  152; 
Bolton  and  Ross,  The  Debatable  Land,  pp.  65  f. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


259 


The  partial  victory  of  Hastings  and  Musgrove  was  fol¬ 
lowed  by  a  partial  and  precarious  treaty.  Early  in  November, 
1717,  Musgrove  brought  down  to  Charles  Town  eleven  Creek 
chiefs ;  Hastings  and  three  or  four  companions  remained  as 
hostages  at  Coweta.  On  November  15,  the  new  governor,  Rob¬ 
ert  Johnson,  reported  to  the  Commons  that  the  Indians  in  town 
were  well  satisfied  with  the  terms  proposed,  and  thought  their 
headmen  would  agree,  ‘and  even  the  Alabamas,  when  they  hear 
their  Talk,  tho’  they  have  no  power  to  conclude  anything  for 
them.’  Early  in  December,  therefore,  the  assembly  directed  the 
Indian  commissioners  to  reopen  the  trade  with  the  Chickasaw 
and  Creek  nations.  Theophilus  Hastings  was  named  as  factor 
among  the  Creeks.12 

The  Charles  Town  treaty  of  1717  was  but  an  entering 
wedge ;  it  must  be  driven  home  by  a  vigorous  program  of  trade 
and  diplomacy.  The  friendly  Creeks  had  asked  for  Englishmen 
‘to  show  the  French  and  Spaniards  that  they  do  not  want 
friends  to  assist  them,  notwithstanding  all  their  lies  to  the  con¬ 
trary.’  In  January,  1718,  Musgrove  hurried  back  with  a  quan¬ 
tity  of  goods  and  some  thirty  whites.13  But  emissaries  from 
Florida  and  Louisiana  were  again  on  the  scene.  This  year  wit¬ 
nessed  another  dramatic  contest  in  the  Creek  towns.  Again 
faction  was  opposed  to  faction.  But  the  Emperor’s  policy  be¬ 
came  clearer — to  have  peace  with  all  his  neighbors,  and  to 
preserve,  in  the  Indian  interest,  a  real  balance  of  power  in  the 
South. 

Indeed,  at  the  moment  of  Musgrove’s  return,  old  Brims 
was  holding  a  council  at  Chewale,  on  the  Tallapoosa,  with  the 
Creek  ambassadors  returning  from  Mexico  City,  and  their 
Spanish  escort  from  Pensacola.  To  the  delight  of  the  adjutant, 
Juan  Fernandez,  Tixjana  was  acknowledged  senor  de  la  Tali- 
puces,  and  Seepeycoffee  designated  successor  to  Brims.  But 
Fernandez  could  not  persuade  the  Emperor  to  remove  with  his 
people  closer  to  Pensacola.  At  this  juncture  a  courier  brought 

“CO.  5:1265,  Q  147  (2);  JC,  August  13,  September  11,  1717;  JCHA, 
October  31,  November  1,  7,  8,  13,  14,  15,  December  4,  6,  1717 ;  JIC,  Septem¬ 
ber  11,  November  9,  1717.  The  text  of  the  treaty  has  not  been  found.  Later 
tradition  held  that  it  established  the  southern  bounds  of  English  settlement 
at  the  Savannah  River.  See  Benjamin  Martyn,  An  Impartial  Enquiry,  1741, 
pp.  54  f. ;  and  Percival,  Diary,  II.  204. 

“JCHA,  December  6,  11,  1717,  and  the  source  cited  in  the  next  note. 


260 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


news  of  the  return  of  the  Carolinians.  The  scene  now  shifted 
to  Coweta,  where  complex  cross-currents  of  intrigue  were  set 
in  motion.  Hastings  and  Musgrove  were  at  length  admitted  to 
the  Coweta  council,  where  they  broke  a  knife  to  confirm  the 
peace,  and  the  Indians  shattered  a  bow  and  arrow.  But  another 
bow  they  kept,  and  a  bloody  knife,  explaining  that  they  still 
had  a  war  with  the  Cherokee,  to  whom  the  English  had  sent 
arms  and  ammunition.  For  another  decade  the  Cherokee- 
Creek  feud  was  to  complicate  the  relations  of  Charles  Town 
with  those  two  great  tribes.  The  arrival  of  a  French  agent 
from  Fort  Toulouse  injected  a  new  element  into  the  situation. 
He  bore  a  flattering  letter  from  Bienville,  Lespinay’s  successor, 
inviting  the  Emperor  to  Mobile  to  receive  gifts  lately  sent  from 
France.  The  Frenchman  made  a  certain  impression,  but  La 
Tour  wras  convinced  that  the  Emperor  was  a  friend  of  Eng¬ 
land,  and  even  more  of  Spain.  Fickle  Seepeycoffee  hurried 
down  to  Mobile;  henceforth  he  was  rather  a  pensioner  of 
Louisiana  than  of  Florida.  When  Fernandez  withdrew  to 
Apalachicola,  the  peace  with  Carolina  still  stood  upon  uncertain 
footing.  But  English  trading-goods  had  their  usual  effect.  An 
agreement  was  soon  reached  regarding  prices.  So  when  Rivera, 
responding  to  Fernandez’s  appeals  for  support,  set  out  for 
Coweta,  he  was  met  at  Sawokli,  March  23,  with  news  that 
turned  him  back.  The  Indians,  he  learned,  had  decided  to  live 
in  peace  with  the  Spanish,  French,  and  English,  and  the  great 
council  at  Coweta  had  dissolved.14 

By  1718  most  of  the  elements  of  the  conflict  in  the  Gulf 
plains  had  been  revealed.  From  this  epoch  dates  the  extraor¬ 
dinary  influence  retained  by  the  Creeks  throughout  the  colonial 
period  as  the  custodians  of  the  wilderness  balance  of  power  in 
the  South.  Even  the  division  of  the  confederacy  into  opposing 
factions  reinforced  what  seems  to  have  been  the  deliberate 
policy  of  the  powerful  Coweta  chief,  the  Emperor  Brims,  ‘as 
great  a  Politician/  declared  one  Carolinian,  ‘as  any  Governor 

14  In  the  detailed  narrative  of  the  mission  of  Juan  Fernandez  in  Barcia, 
Ensayo  cronologico,  pp.  331-40,  the  English  agents  were  disguised  as  Chan- 
masculo  (i.e.,  John  Musgrove),  and  Chiaflus  (i.e.,  Theophilus  [Hastings]). 
See  also  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  147  (2),  Q  152,  Q  157.  On  French  relations  with 
the  Creeks  see  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13,  A  5,  ff.  117f.,  184-7,  and  Barcia,  Ensayo 
cronologico,  p.  344.  See  JIC,  July  16,  1718,  for  appointment  of  three  sub¬ 
factors  for  the  Creek  trade,  and  Appendix  B  for  prices  established. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


261 


in  America.’15  ‘No  one  has  ever  been  able  to  make  him  take 
sides  with  one  of  the  three  European  nations  who  know  him,’ 
wrote  an  anonymous  Frenchman,  ‘he  alleging  that  he  wishes 
to  see  everyone,  to  be  neutral,  and  not  to  espouse  any  of  the 
quarrels  which  the  French,  English  and  Spaniards  have  with 
one  another.’16  This  policy  was  so  strongly  impressed  upon  his 
people  that  sixty  years  later  James  Adair  could  write  that  ‘they 
held  it  as  an  invariable  maxim,  that  their  security  and  welfare 
required  a  perpetual  friendly  intercourse  with  us  and  the 
French;  as  our  political  state  of  war  with  each  other,  would 
always  secure  their  liberties.’17 

On  the  margins  of  the  Creek  country  the  European  com¬ 
petitors  for  their  favors  set  up  frontier  forts  :  French  Toulouse, 
Spanish  San  Marcos,  and,  in  1721,  the  English  fort  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Altamaha.  Other  posts  were  frequently  projected. 
Barnwell’s  program  of  1720  called  for  English  forts  on  the 
Chattahoochee  and  on  the  Alabama  or  the  Tennessee.  At  the 
forks  of  the  Altamaha  it  was  proposed  in  1725  to  convert  a 
traders’  factory  into  a  colony  post,  and  in  1727  and  1729  other 
posts  were  mooted  in  both  divisions  of  the  confederacy.18  The 
French,  too,  pressed  eastward.  Soon  after  Fort  Toulouse  was 
built  Bienville  attempted  to  create  an  advanced  base  nearer  the 
Lower  Creeks.  While  La  Tour  was  sending  agents  to  the  Em¬ 
peror,  Bienville,  early  in  1718,  despatched  Chateaugue  to  build 
a  stockaded  post,  Fort  de  Crevecoeur,  on  Baie  St.  Joseph,  just 
west  of  the  mouth  of  the  Apalachicola  River.  But  the  Spanish 
soon  discovered  this  flagrant  intrusion  into  Florida,  and  pro¬ 
tested  vehemently  to  the  commandant  and  to  Bienville.  Bien¬ 
ville  referred  to  orders  from  France,  but  shortly  abandoned 
Fort  de  Crevecoeur  as  untenable.  In  South  Carolina  the  affair 
did  not  escape  notice.  With  the  building  of  Alabama  Fort,  and 
a  rumored  French  reconnaissance  near  Altamaha,  it  was  cited 
in  propaganda  at  home  as  further  evidence  of  the  dangerous 
French  policy  of  encirclement.19 

15  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  121. 

16  Quoted  in  Swanton,  Early  History,  p.  226. 

17  James  Adair,  The  History  of  the  American  Indians,  1775,  p.  260. 

18  See  above,  pp.  191-2. 

18  A  narrative  of  this  forgotten  French  intrusion  is  in  Barcia,  Ensayo 
cronologico,  pp.  338  f.,  341,  345.  See  Bienville  to  conseil  de  marine,  June  12, 
September  25,  1718,  in  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C“,  A  5,  ff.  154-159,  161 ;  Commons 


262 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


That  the  French  were  in  fact  looking  eastward,  the  Franco- 
Spanish  conflict  in  war  and  diplomacy  between  1719  and  1721 
afforded  ample  evidence.  In  1719  occurred  a  brief,  and  local¬ 
ized,  intercolonial  war :  the  American  phase  of  a  European  con¬ 
test  in  which  the  quadruple  alliance  of  England,  France,  Hol¬ 
land  and  Austria  opposed  the  Italian  ambitions  of  Philip  V  and 
Elizabeth  Farnese.  There  were  Indian  raids  on  the  Carolina- 
Florida  border,  and  at  Havana  an  expedition  was  prepared  to 
attack  Charles  Town.20  But  the  zone  of  active  hostilities  was 
confined  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  There  the  exciting  Franco- 
Spanish  duel  for  Pensacola  acquired  a  special  significance  from 
the  triangular  contest  in  progress  in  the  hinterland. 

From  the  time  of  Iberville  the  French  had  coveted  Pensa¬ 
cola  as  a  base  for  the  extension  of  their  sway  among  the  Creeks 
and  to  block  the  westward  progress  of  the  Carolinians.  With 
news  of  the  declaration  of  war,  Bienville  acted  promptly  upon 
orders  from  the  Compagnie  d’Occident  to  seize  Pensacola  be¬ 
fore  the  English  could  forestall  him.  In  the  south  of  America 
the  sharpest  conflict  of  interest  was  actually  between  these 
nominal  allies.  Pensacola,  however,  proved  easier  to  take  than 
to  hold.  May  15,  1719,  a  half-famished  garrison  surrendered 
and  was  sent  in  two  vessels  to  Cuba.  But  these  transports  were 
captured  off  Havana  by  the  armada  sailing  against  Charles 
Town.  Augmented  by  the  French  vessels,  and  their  crews,  the 
fleet  took  aboard  the  Havana  garrison,  and  soon  reoccupied 
Pensacola.  Had  aid  from  Mexico  materialized,  had  the  Spanish 
even  shown  a  little  more  resolution,  Louisiana  might  indeed 
have  been  lost.  But  early  in  September  the  fleet  from  Brest  saved 
the  French  colony  and  made  possible  the  retaking  of  Pensacola, 
again  in  a  bloodless  struggle.  Bienville  now  dismantled  the  de¬ 
fenses.  When  the  spring  of  1720  brought  news  of  a  suspension 
of  arms  French  colors  still  waved  at  Santa  Maria  de  Galve.21 

But  in  the  diplomatic  sequel  the  one  objective  of  France  in 
America  was  sacrificed  to  the  Regent’s  eagerness  for  the  al- 

House  answers  to  queries  (1720)  in  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  205;  Carte  nouvelle 
(1718),  MS,  in  Bibl.  Nat.  MSS  4040,  C  6  (photostat,  W.  L.  Clements  Li¬ 
brary)  ;  and  D’Anville,  Carte  dc  la  Louisiane  dressee  en  Mai,  1732  (1752). 

20  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  197.  Barcia,  Ensayo  cronologico,  pp.  350  f. 

21  Ibid.,  pp.  346-62.  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane,  livre  I,  chapitre  iii,  ‘La 
guerre  Franco-Espagnole  (1719-1721).’ 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


263 


liance  of  Spain.  Dubois’  original  instructions  to  Moulevrier 
had  insisted  upon  the  retention  of  Pensacola,  to  keep  out  other 
maritime  powers  who  might  interrupt  the  commerce  of  Louisi¬ 
ana,  and  to  check  Carolinian  encroachments.  In  addition  he  was 
instructed  to  secure  inclusive  boundaries  for  Louisiana  on  the 
Gulf :  on  the  west,  the  Rio  Grande,  or  at  any  rate  Baie  St. 
Louis,  on  the  east,  Tampa  Bay,  or  at  least  ‘la  riviere  des  Apa- 
lache.’  But  Philip  insisted  upon  the  status  quo  ante  helium  on 
the  Gulf,  and  Dubois’  program  of  expansion  was  perforce 
abandoned.  In  1721  the  Spanish  returned  to  Pensacola.22 
Thereafter,  in  general,  Spanish  and  French  worked  together 
to  defeat  their  common  rivals  in  the  old  Southwest. 

In  the  tortuous  diplomacy  of  the  southern  wilderness  the 
skein  of  international  intrigue  was  frequently  tangled  by  tribal 
politics  and  intertribal  relations.  Two  problems  of  this  sort 
especially  complicated  the  task  of  Carolina  governors  and  In¬ 
dian  authorities  in  the  decade  after  the  peace  with  the  Creeks : 
the  Cherokee-Creek  war,  and  the  rapport  of  Yamasee  and 
Creeks. 

Prior  to  the  Yamasee  War  South  Carolina  for  some  years 
had  aimed  to  promote  peace  among  all  allied  Indians.  But  this, 
men  believed,  had  made  possible  the  great  conspiracy  of  1715. 
Hence  there  was  no  haste  to  bring  the  Creeks  and  the  moun¬ 
taineers  to  agreement.  One  Carolinian  wrote  home  cynically  of 
the  early  overtures  of  the  Creeks :  ‘This  makes  the  matter  of 
great  weight  to  us,  how  to  hold  both  as  our  friends,  for  some 
time,  and  assist  them  in  Cutting  one  another’s  throats  without 
offending  either.  This  is  the  game  we  intend  to  play  if  possi¬ 
ble.’23  It  was  an  embarrassing,  even  a  dangerous  game.  The 
Cherokee,  not  content  to  be  called  the  ‘best  friends’  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish,  reproached  them  for  supplying  their  implacable  foes  with 
arms.  On  the  other  hand  the  Creeks  denounced  the  Carolinians 
for  warning  the  Cherokee  of  impending  raids ;  they  even  at¬ 
tacked  English  traders  in  the  Cherokee  towns.  By  1725  it  was 
evident  that  a  policy  which  endangered  English  trade  and 

22  Morel-Fatio,  A.,  and  Leonardson,  H.  (ed.),  Recueil  des  instructions, 
XII  (Espagne,  1701-1722),  pp.  374-6;  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane,  pp.  70-80; 
H.  Le  Clercq,  Histoire  de  la  regence.  III.  132-50;  JC,  February  11,  1723. 

23  C.O.  5  :1265,  Q  126. 


264  THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 

weakened  English  prestige  was  bankrupt  and  must  be 
abandoned. 

Meanwhile,  the  Yamasee  were  causing  annoyance  out  of 
all  proportion  to  their  numbers.  Their  raids,24  supported  by 
Creek  hostiles,  checked  the  repeopling  of  the  southern  parishes, 
and  gave  occasion  for  the  projects  brought  forward  in  England 
and  America  between  1717  and  1730  for  townships  or  barrier- 
provinces  along  the  Savannah  and  Altamaha.  ‘It  is  a  very  great 
discouragement  to  the  settlers  of  our  Southern  Frontiers,’ 
wrote  President  Middleton,  ‘to  be  always  obliged  to  hold  the 
plough  in  one  hand  and  the  sword  in  the  other.’25  The  Yama¬ 
see,  moreover,  were  regarded  as  the  focal  centre  from  which 
the  Spanish  infection  might  spread  throughout  the  Creek  na¬ 
tion.  There  were  two  alternatives :  to  draw  them  back  from 
Florida,  or  to  destroy  them.  Success  in  either  course  required 
support  from  the  Creeks.  For  more  than  a  decade  the  con¬ 
version  of  the  Yamasee  was  vainly  attempted  by  agents  who 
undertook  dangerous  missions  to  Florida,20  or  by  pressure  upon 
their  Lower  Creek  friends.  Meanwhile,  a  number  of  punitive 
expeditions  went  out  against  them.27 

The  coming  of  Francis  Nicholson,  that  old  antagonist  of 
the  French,  as  provisional  royal  governor,  infused  new  energy 
into  Indian  affairs,  which  had  suffered  during  the  dispute  with 
the  Proprietors.  ‘An  old  War  Captain,  especially  among  the 
Senecas  and  the  Northward  Indians,’  Nicholson  described  him¬ 
self  on  his  arrival  in  1721  to  Ouletta,  the  son  of  old  Brims  and 

21  C.O.  5 :358,  A  2,  A  4 ;  382,  f.  23 ;  387,  f.  167. 

25  Ibid. 

20  In  1716  Major  James  Cochrane  and  Mrs.  John  Charlton  were  employed 
in  two  attempts  to  bring  back  the  Huspaw  King  and  his  people  (Cooper 
ed.,  Statutes,  II.  695;  JCHA,  April  18,  May  3,  4,  19,  June  28,  November 
22,  23,  1716).  John  Barnwell  renewed  the  attempt  in  1719  during  the  Anglo- 
Spanish  war,  but  his  Indian  messengers  found  the  Huspaw  King  in  a  refrac¬ 
tory  mood,  ‘the  Spaniards  having  made  him  Chief  General  of  500  and  odd 
Indians  to  come  immediately  Against  Us,  he  was  carried  about  the  town  in 
triumph  with  drums  and  Trumpets’  (C.O.  5:1265,  Q  185).  John  Bee  in 
1723  (C.O.  5:359,  B  28,  29),  and  Mathew  Smallwood’s  trader,  John  Jones, 
in  1727  (JC,  September  22,  1727),  made  other  unsuccessful  attempts. 

27  See  JCHA,  June  13,  15,  22,  1717,  and  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  202.  The  latter 
includes  ‘An  Exact  acct.  of  the  late  Expedition  against  the  Yamasees  and 
Spaniards  of  St.  Augustine  performed  by  50  Indians,  Melvin  a  white  man 
and  Musgrove  and  Griffin  half  breed  or  Mustees  under  the  leading  of 
Oweeka  a  Creek  Indian  their  generall,  Wettly  his  Second  a  Palachacola 
Indian’  (1719).  They  burned  three  towns,  including  the  mission  at  the  Yoa 
town,  and  carried  off  the  friar’s  plate  and  other  plunder. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


265 


the  English  candidate  for  the  Creek  succession.  Nicholson  de¬ 
nounced  the  French  scheme  of  building  forts  as  ‘a  Design  of 
Theirs,  so  to  keep  you  under  in  Time,  that  none  of  the  English 
shall  bring  up  any  Goods  amongst  you  to  trade  without  Leave 
of  the  French.’  By  the  English,  he  declared,  they  had  been 
treated  as  a  free  people,  and  constantly  supplied  with  goods, 
‘which  we  know  the  French  can’t  do  without  buying  it  of  the 
English.’28  Again  in  1722  Ouletta  appeared  in  place  of  the  Em¬ 
peror.  ‘We  take  this  to  be  a  critical  juncture  of  time,’  declared 
the  governor  and  council.  To  make  head  against  French  and 
Spanish  intrigues  commissions  were  sent  to  Brims  ‘to  act  and 
be  headman  of  the  Creek  nation,’  and  under  him  to  Ouletta,  to 
the  Tukabahchee  chief,  and  to  the  Okfuskee  war  captain;  and 
English  colors  were  also  sent  to  be  displayed  in  their  towns. 
Theophilus  Hastings  was  engaged  as  a  special  agent  to  go  from 
town  to  town  to  impress  the  governor’s  talk  upon  the  Creeks. 
He  was  offered  £300  for  the  journey,  or  £500  if  he  induced  the 
Yamasee  to  submit  and  return  to  South  Carolina.  If  persuasion 
failed,  and  the  governor  should  authorize  a  Creek  expedition 
against  the  Yamasee,  the  Commons  promised  him  £50  for  each 
Yamasee  killed  or  enslaved  and  £1000  when  the  Yamasee  were 
utterly  destroyed.29 

But  this  scheme  to  convert  the  Yamasee  broke  down,  as 
did  another  attempt  in  1723  through  offices  of  John  Bee,  who 
maintained  a  trading  factory  at  the  forks  of  the  Altamaha. 
Ouletta  and  Brims,  it  was  charged,  ‘stifled  the  talk’  among  the 
Lower  Creeks.  Only  at  Kasihta,  where  Cussaba  was  a  notable 
friend  of  the  English,  did  Hastings  find  cooperation.  The 
Anglophile  party  was  stronger  in  the  Upper  Towns,  though 
the  Alabama,  overlooked  by  Fort  Toulouse,  were  hostile. 
Oulatchee  of  Tukabahchee  Town,  with  the  Okfuskee  Captain, 
took  the  ‘talk’  directly  from  Nicholson  at  Charles  Town,  and 
raised  a  war-party  against  the  Yamasee.  To  force  the  Lower 
Creeks  into  line  the  governor  and  council  in  June,  1723,  laid 
an  embargo  upon  trade  with  their  towns  or  with  the  Alabama ; 
the  Talapoosa  traders  were  warned  to  follow  the  Upper  Path. 

23  Report  of  the  Committee,  Appointed  to  examine  into  the  Proceedings 
of  the  People  of  Georgia  (1737),  Appendix,  p.  60. 

29  JC,  May  25,  26,  June  14,  1722;  JCHA,  May  26,  31,  June  14,  21,  1722; 
May  17,  1723. 


266 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


The  Talapoosa  that  year  took  a  few  Yamasee  scalps  in  Florida. 
Creek  hands  were  dipped  in  their  blood,  and  at  the  moment  it 
seemed  that  even  in  the  Lower  Towns  the  scales  had  been 
tipped.  Returning  from  Florida  by  way  of  Fort  Moore  and 
Charles  Town,  the  Talapoosa  band  reported  the  notorious  nest 
of  marauders,  Cherokeeleechee’s  Town,  broken  up,  and  Cowetas 
and  Okmulgees  sending  out  war  parties  against  the  Yamasee. 
But  they  also  reported  the  French  actively  opposing  the  Yama¬ 
see  campaign.  Seepeycoffee  had  gone  to  Mobile,  where  the 
governor  had  threatened  to  send  a  force  to  arrest  Hastings 
and  Cussaba  as  authors  of  the  breach.  With  good  reason  Hast¬ 
ings  doubted  the  Lower  Creek  promises.  When  Ouletta  came  in 
again  in  the  fall  he  was  given  a  very  strong  ‘talk,’  denouncing 
the  deviousness  of  his  people.  He  protested  his  own  good  faith, 
but  admitted  there  were  many  divisions.  Within  a  year  the 
English  lost  their  chief  client:  Ouletta  was  slain  by  the  Yama¬ 
see.  Seepeycoffee,  the  old  antagonist  of  Charles  Town,  was  the 
accepted  heir  of  Brims.30 

Only  the  Upper  Creeks  now  showed  any  diligence  in  the 
Yamasee  affair.  In  June,  1724,  when  several  of  their  chiefs 
were  in  town,  a  thinly-veiled  suggestion  was  made  that  they 
would  do  well  to  punish  the  Chattahoochee  towns  before  the 
latter  should  join  hands  with  the  French  against  them.31  This 
extraordinary  incitement  to  civil  war  within  the  confederation 
was  due  to  recent  portents  of  danger:  an  empty  rumor  that 
the  French  meant  to  build  a  fort  at  Coweta,  and  new  complica¬ 
tions  in  the  Cherokee-Creek  feud.  On  the  path  to  the  mountains 
a  trader  had  been  insulted  by  some  Lower  Creeks.  In  Novem¬ 
ber,  1724,  came  a  more  ominous  incident.  A  gang  of  Upper 
Creeks,  under  Gogel  Eyes,  attacked  and  plundered  a  trader’s 
storehouse  near  Tugaloo  and  wounded  the  trader,  John  Sharp. 
South  Carolina  must  join  the  Cherokee  to  subdue  the  treacher¬ 
ous  Creeks,  warned  Hatton  and  the  Cherokee  traders,  else  again 
all  the  Indians  would  unite  against  the  province.32 

30C.O.  5:359,  B  26,  B  28  (11),  (12),  B  49;  JCHA,  October  4,  November 
14,  1723.  See  Benavides  to  the  King,  August  18,  1723,  in  Brooks  (comp.), 
Unwritten  History,  summarizing  Pena’s  report  of  English  activities  among 
the  Talapoosa,  and  his  distrust  of  pretended  Spanish  friends  among  the 
Lower  Creeks.  The  English  faction,  he  thought,  greatly  outnumbered  the 
Spanish. 

31 JC,  June  10,  1724. 

32  C.O.  5  :359,  B  125,  B  126. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


267 


Clearly  the  affairs  of  the  Indians  approached  another  crisis. 
From  1725  to  1728  the  Carolinians  put  forth  a  series  of  extra¬ 
ordinary  diplomatic  efforts.  To  checkmate  Spanish  and  French 
intrigue,  to  end  the  war  between  Creeks  and  Cherokee,  to  settle 
finally  with  the  Yamasee,  to  come  to  a  clear  understanding  with 
the  Lower  Creeks — these  were  problems  demanding  skill  and 
persistence.  Accordingly,  the  Indian  agency  was  reorganized 
and  the  trader-agents,  Hastings  and  Hatton,  discharged.  In  the 
summer  of  1725,  Colonel  Chicken  was  sent  to  the  Cherokee, 
Tobias  Fitch  was  made  an  agent  for  the  more  difficult  mission 
to  the  Creeks.33 

From  July  to  October,  1725,  Chicken  travelled  through  the 
Cherokee  towns  on  both  sides  of  the  mountains,  supervising 
traders,  and  giving  the  English  ‘talk’  in  councils  at  Keowee 
and  Tennessee.34  Everywhere  he  strove  to  prevent  the  Cherokee 
from  making  a  separate  and  unauthorized  peace  with  the 
Creeks,  to  explain  why  Carolina  still  refrained  from  war  with 
the  Creeks,  and  to  warn  against  the  French.  The  Cherokee 
reply  was  given  in  a  great  council  at  Elejoy.  ‘It  is  my  humble 
Opinion,’  Chicken  wrote  to  Middleton,  ‘that  these  people  are  so 
well  Affected  to  us  that  they  may  be  brought  into  any  Measures 
the  Government  pleases.’  Soon  proof  was  offered  them  of  Eng¬ 
lish  solicitude  for  their  safety.  Fitch  reported  to  Charles  Town 
that  the  Upper  Creeks  and  Choctaw  were  about  to  attack  the 
mountaineers.  This  news  was  forwarded  to  Chicken,  who 
hastened  to  obey  Middleton’s  instructions  to  warn  the  Cherokee. 
Thus  the  Creek-Choctaw  raid  was  foiled,  and  a  new  claim 
upon  Cherokee  loyalty  established.  But  at  Okfuskee  Tobias 
Fitch  was  hard  pressed  to  explain  how  the  news  had  been 
carried  to  the  mountains.  The  blame  he  sought  to  throw  on 
that  useful  scapegoat,  the  Indian  trader. 

Even  before  this  complication  arose  Fitch  had  faced  a  dif¬ 
ficult  task.35  To  it  he  brought  assiduity  and  a  considerable  skill 
in  negotiation.  Between  July  and  December,  1725,  he  visited 

33  See  above,  p.  201. 

31  Chicken’s  journal  (C.O.  5:12,  ff.  14-34)  is  printed  in  Mereness  (ed. ) , 
Travels,  pp.  97-172.  As  transmitted  to  Middleton  in  letters  it  is  in  JC, 
August  24,  November  2,  1725. 

35  Fitch’s  journal  (C.O.  5:12,  ff .  35-55)  is  printed  in  Mereness  (ed.), 
Travels,  pp.  176-212.  Some  matter  not  in  Mereness  appears  in  JC,  August 
24,  25,  November  2,  1725. 


268 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


every  town  in  the  confederation,  making  frequent  journeys 
between  the  Chattahoochee  and  Alabama  settlements.  The 
Upper  Creeks  readily  promised  redress  for  the  Sharp  outrage. 
Later,  Fitch  persuaded  the  Abikhas  to  withdraw  from  the 
Cherokee  expedition,  which  was  reduced  from  a  formidable 
army  to  a  small  raiding  gang.  But  both  the  upper  and  the  lower 
towns  rejected  the  proffered  mediation  with  the  mountaineers, 
which  was  therefore  dropped  until  a  more  favorable  juncture. 
For  the  future  Brims  promised  better  compliance  with  English 
orders,  and  a  brisk  war  against  the  Yamasee.  He  also  inter¬ 
ceded  with  the  agent  for  Seepeycoffee,  who  was  seeking  English 
support  for  the  succession  to  Ouletta.  Seepeycoffee,  indeed,  now 
offered  the  fruits  of  repentance.  He  led  an  army  of  two  hun¬ 
dred  Cowetas,  Sawokli,  Tukabahchee,  etc.,  against  the  Yama¬ 
see,  and  on  his  return,  at  Fitch’s  recommendation,  received  the 
coveted  commission  in  a  council  at  Coweta.  To  be  sure,  he  had 
done  little  damage  to  the  Yamasee,  who  had  been  warned  of  the 
attack  by  the  towns  below  the  Point,  still  strongly  pro-Spanish. 
At  Coweta,  in  August,  Fitch  had  been  able  to  stage  a  bit  of 
melodrama  with  the  assistance  of  the  Kasihtas,  and  ‘stop  the 
talk’  of  a  Spanish  emissary.  But  in  November  a  hostile  chief 
at  Apalachicola  released  a  negro  taken  into  custody  under 
Fitch’s  warrant.  Moreover,  there  were  signs  that  the  French 
were  again  intermeddling  to  support  Florida  and  the  Yamasee. 
A  few  days  after  Seepeycoffee’s  army  had  set  out,  Fitch  learned, 
it  was  overtaken  by  a  negro  from  Fort  Toulouse,  who  turned 
back  some  seventy  warriors.  When  Fitch  returned  to  Charles 
Town  in  December,  he  had  no  illusions  as  to  the  loyalty  of  any 
of  the  Lower  Creeks  except  the  Kasihta.  Fear  of  the  Cherokee, 
and  pressure  from  the  Upper  Creeks,  not  love  of  the  English, 
held  them  in  line. 

With  the  new  year,  1726,  there  developed  a  new  and  more 
dangerous  emergency.  Fitch  and  Chicken  were  again  despatched 
into  the  wilderness,  the  former  with  an  escort  of  ten  men  on 
account  of  his  ‘extremely  hazardous’  errand,  and  the  assembly 
was  summoned  into  special  session.36 

About  the  middle  of  March,  1726,  a  sizable  party  of  Chero¬ 
kee  and  Chickasaw  had  attacked  Kasihta  Town  on  the  Chat- 


38  JC,  April  21,  1725. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


269 


tahoochee.  An  ordinary  incident,  this,  in  intertribal  warfare, 
except  that  the  invaders  had  carried  a  flag  and  drum  presented 
them  some  time  before  by  the  Charles  Town  government.  Here 
was  evidence,  then,  to  support  Spanish  insinuations :  Fitch  had 
been  sent  to  close  their  eyes  while  another  beloved  man,  Colonel 
Chicken,  incited  the  Cherokee  against  them.  Samuel  Sleigh,  a 
Creek  trader,  warned  Charles  Town  that  a  plot  to  massacre 
the  English  was  afoot.  Even  the  Upper  Creeks  were  wavering, 
though  Chekill,  Long  Warrior  of  Coweta,  was  rebuffed  when 
he  carried  up  the  Spanish  present.  As  for  Brims  and  Seepey- 
coffee,  Sleigh  reported  that  he  had  seen  them  at  Apalachicola, 
with  headmen  from  each  of  the  Lower  Towns.  They  were 
hastening  to  St.  Augustine,  he  said,  ‘to  make  a  firm  peace  with 
the  Spanish  and  not  to  regard  the  English  any  more.’  Mean¬ 
while  King  Hott  (or  Liquor)  of  Kasihta  was  rallying  the 
English  party.37 

The  assembly  was  now  convinced  that  the  collapse  of  Eng¬ 
lish  prestige  could  only  be  stayed  by  peace  between  Cherokee 
and  Creeks.  Late  in  May  the  agents  set  out  to  promote  the 
treaty.38  After  six  months  the  Cherokee  headmen  arrived  in  the 
settlements  to  accept  mediation.  For  weeks  they  were  fed  at 
provincial  expense,  until  Hobihatchee,  King  of  the  Abikhas, 
came  in  with  the  Upper  Creeks,  and  later  Chekill  and  twenty- 
four  Lower  Creeks  appeared.  On  January  26,  1727,  with  much 
ceremony,  the  formal  mediation  occurred  in  the  presence  of 
both  houses  of  the  assembly.  The  Cherokee  were  seated  at  the 
right  hand  of  President  Middleton,  the  Creeks  at  the  left.  Al¬ 
ready  in  separate  conferences  Middleton  had  warned  them 
against  the  French :  ‘in  time  they’l  make  you  all  slaves.’  All  who 
had  been  friends  of  the  English  before  the  war,  he  said,  ‘should 
be  united  in  Peace,  to  be  on  theire  Guard  against  them.’  In  the 
council  the  Cherokee  heaped  scorn  on  Chekill  for  the  small 
number  of  his  followers,  and  required  a  pledge  that  they  would 
never  more  harm  the  English.  ‘Why  do  you  goe  to  the  French 
and  the  Spaniards?’  demanded  the  Long  Warrior  of  Ten¬ 
nessee.  ‘What  do  you  get  by  it  ?  how  can  you  goe  to  so  many 

3,JC,  April  20,  1726,  contains  Sleigh’s  journal,  March  23-April  6,  1726. 

38  JC,  April  25-30,  1726.  Middleton  to  Nicholson,  May  24,  1726,  in  C.O. 
5  :383,  no.  28  (viii,  b). 


270 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


of  the  white  People?  This  great  Town  is  able  to  Supply  us  with 
everything  wee  want,  more  than  all  the  French  and  Spaniards.’ 
After  royal  healths  had  been  drunk  ‘by  the  whole  Company 
under  the  Discharge  of  all  the  Cannon  at  the  Fort,’  the  council 
adjourned.  The  Indians  then  went  off  to  smoke  the  peace-pipe 
together.39 

Despite  these  solemn  ceremonies  in  the  province-house  at 
Charles  Town,  the  following  year,  1727,  found  the  Lower 
Creeks  again  at  odds  with  the  English.  To  be  sure,  they  refused 
an  overture  from  Florida  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Carolina 
traders.  But  the  Creek  hostiles  were  deeply  involved  in  those 
border  forays  which,  at  this  time  of  the  breach  with  Spain, 
terrorized  the  southern  parishes,  and  led  to  the  withdrawal  of 
the  garrison  from  the  Altamaha.  The  murder  of  Mathew 
Smallwood  near  Fort  King  George  put  the  final  seal  upon 
Creek  guilt.  The  council  was  now  convinced  that  a  great  Indian 
war  impended.  The  assembly  was  hurriedly  summoned  and 
extraordinary  measures  adopted  to  defend  the  border  and  put 
to  the  touch,  once  for  all,  the  vexed  relations  with  the  Lower 
Creeks.  The  traders  were  withdrawn  from  their  towns  and 
assembled  for  safety  in  the  Upper  Creek  country.  At  the  end 
of  September,  an  act  was  passed  to  authorize  two  expeditions 
‘against  our  Indian  and  other  Enemies’ — Palmer’s  expedition 
against  the  Yamasee,  and  another  against  the  Lower  Creeks. 
One  hundred  whites  were  designed  for  the  first,  three  hundred 
for  the  latter,  with  as  many  Indians,  Cherokee,  Upper  Creek, 
etc.,  as  could  be  raised.  The  council  was  anxious  to  attach  a 
body  of  Catawba  to  the  Creek  army,  partly  to  commit  them 
against  alliance  with  the  Creeks  should  the  campaign  miscarry. 
For  if  South  Carolina  should  fail  in  this,  the  most  ambitious 
and  hazardous  attempt  yet  made  to  impose  English  authority 
among  the  southern  Indians,  it  was  realized  that  ‘it  might  prove 
of  the  worst  consequence  to  the  province  and  a  means  to  encour¬ 
age  all  our  Indians  to  insult  us.’  But  the  council  decided  to  post¬ 
pone  the  major  Creek  offensive  until  the  success  of  Palmer’s 
invasion  of  Florida  was  assured.  Meanwhile,  the  field  officer 
in  charge,  Colonel  Charlesworth  Glover,  was  sent  up  to  the 

39  C.O.  5:387,  ff.  131-141;  JCHA,  January  4,  11-13,  21,  26,  1727. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


271 


Creek  nation  as  a  special  Indian  agent,  in  a  final  attempt  to 
substitute  diplomacy  for  war.40 

Glover’s  mission  in  1727  was  one  of  extraordinary  delicacy 
and  importance.41  The  Upper  Creeks  he  found  still  loyal,  and 
this  temper  he  confirmed,  warning  them  against  French  en¬ 
croachment.  But  the  Lower  Creeks  were  badly  divided :  the 
‘Cowetas  and  Pallachacolas  had  declared  for  the  Spaniards  and 
the  rest  for  us.’  ‘Now  you  are  going  the  Broad  Path  to  destruc¬ 
tion,’  he  warned  Chekill,  ‘for  fighting  against  one  another, 
some  for  the  Spaniards,  some  for  us.’  So  long  as  they  received 
the  Spanish  they  need  expect  to  see  no  English  traders.  To 
this  ultimatum  Chekill  craftily  replied :  ‘Brims  bid  me  ask  you 
what  harm  it  did  to  receive  the  Spaniards,  French  or  any  White 
People ;  he  could  see  no  harm  in  it.’ 

In  March,  Glover  hurried  down  to  the  Chattahoochee  to 
challenge  a  French  officer  just  come  up  the  river  from  Florida. 
Cooperation  was  never  more  complete  between  Florida  and 
Louisiana.  In  1727  Perier  had  earned  Spanish  thanks  for  check¬ 
ing  the  Talapoosa  plan  to  attack  Pensacola.  In  November, 
though  he  had  learned  of  the  war  in  Europe  between  France 
and  Spain,  he  wrote  that  he  expected  to  aid  St.  Augustine 
indirectly  against  the  English,  because  the  safety  of  Louisiana 
demanded  that  the  Carolinians  be  held  at  arms’  length.42  Glover 
managed  to  reach  Coweta  a  day  before  ‘the  King  of  France’s 
son’  and  to  ‘stop  his  talk.’  He  knew  well  that  the  whole  basis 
of  English  influence  was  the  Indian  trade.  Therefore  he  painted 
to  the  Indians  a  vivid  contrast  between  the  meagre  commerce 
of  Florida  and  Louisiana  and  the  great  colonial  trade  of  Eng¬ 
land.  ‘There’s  been  several  of  you  down  in  Charles  Town  and 
seen  Ships  coming  in  every  Day,  and  did  you  ever  hear  the 
English  talk  of  such  Things?  We  won’t  get  out  of  our  Chairs 
to  go  and  look  at  so  foolish  a  thing  as  one  Ship.  When  a  small 
Spanish  Canoe  is  coming  to  your  Towns  the  whoop  will  be 

40  JC,  June  14-17,  August  1-4,  9-10,  14,  18,  24-26,  29-31,  September  1, 
12-16,  21-23,  29-30,  1727;  February  1,  1728;  C.O.  5:412,  no.  82,  act  of 
September  30,  1727,  not  in  Cooper  or  Trott. 

41  Glover’s  journal,  October,  1727-April,  1728,  is  in  C.O.  5 :387,  f.  171 
et  seq. 

42  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13,  A  10,  ff.  230-239.  See  ibid.,  A  11,  f.  14,  for 
Perier’s  report  to  the  minister,  August  15,  1728,  of  his  correspondence  with 
Middleton,  who  had  protested  against  French  aid  to  Florida. 


272 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


carried  to  the  Abickaws  before  she  gets  to  Cowetas,  but  I  can 
never  hear  any  of  you  talk  of  our  Pack  Horses  coming  till  you 
hear  the  bells  Gingle.’  Though  he  had  won  this  skirmish,  Glover 
was  apprehensive  of  increasing  French  influence  on  the  Chatta¬ 
hoochee  and  among  the  Lower  Creeks.  It  was  on  this  account 
that  he  strongly  opposed  the  despatch  of  soldiers  against  the 
Creeks.  ‘It’s  my  Opinion,’  he  wrote  to  Middleton,  that  ‘there 
will  be  no  occasion  of  them:  it  is  the  Trade  Governs  these 
People.  If  there  comes  any  army  they’ll  fly  to  the  French.’ 
More  useful  than  troops,  he  advised,  would  be  a  permanent 
Creek  agent.  ‘The  lower  Creeks  will  soon  make  friends  with 
the  Spaniards  again  if  there  is  not  somebody  to  prevent  it;  and 
in  short  every  two  or  three  traders  ought  to  have  an  agent  or 
Commissioner  to  keep  them  in  order.’43 

It  was  news  of  Palmer’s  victory  over  the  Yamasee  that 
completed  the  success  of  Glover’s  mission.  Trade  was  reopened 
with  the  Lower  Creeks,  and  a  special  effort  was  made  to  win 
old  Brims  by  liberal  presents.  After  ten  years  of  uncertain 
peace,  after  three  anxious  years  of  increasing  tension,  some¬ 
thing  like  stability  had  been  restored  in  Anglo-Creek  relations. 
Fitch  and  Glover  had  helped  notably  to  make  possible  the  later 
frontier  achievements  of  James  Edward  Oglethorpe. 

By  1728  the  attention  of  South  Carolina  was  again  focussed 
upon  rivalry  with  the  French  in  the  West.  Franco-Spanish  co¬ 
operation  among  the  Creeks  despite  the  European  war,  and  now 
rumors  of  French  overtures  to  the  Overhill  Cherokee,  who  so 
long  had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  attacks  of  the  French  Indians 
of  the  Northwest,  raised  profound  alarm.  On  the  other  hand 
the  Carolinians  for  some  years  had  been  even  more  aggressive 
in  striving  to  build  an  Anglophile  party  in  the  great  French 
tribe  of  Choctaw  Indians.  French  and  English  Indian  diplo¬ 
mats  and  traders  were  now  playing  for  the  highest  stakes  in  the 
game  of  forest  intrigue.  Equally  disastrous  to  Louisiana  or  to 
South  Carolina  would  be  the  loss  of  the  Choctaw  or  the 
Cherokee. 

The  Yamasee-Creek  War  had  ruined  the  far-western  trade 
from  Charles  Town  at  the  moment  of  its  greatest  expansion. 
But  by  1720  the  French  were  again  talking  of  the  English 


43  C.O.  5  :387. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


273 


menace  in  Louisiana.  That  year  the  Chickasaw  attacked  a 
French  trader  and  took  to  the  war-path,  at  English  instigation 
it  was  believed.  Bienville  undertook  to  raise  his  own  allies. 
The  Choctaw  responded,  though  part  of  the  tribe  opposed  the 
Chickasaw  war.  The  Alabamas,  complaining  that  the  French 
refused  to  pay  English  prices  for  deerskins,  could  be  won  only 
to  neutrality,  but  they  persuaded  the  Chickasaw  not  to  attack 
the  French  water-route  to  Fort  Toulouse.  Along  the  Mississippi 
the  Chickasaw  raided  the  Yazoo  and  Koroa  villages,  quite  in 
their  old  manner.  Again  the  Natchez,  as  in  1715,  caught  the 
contagion  from  their  eastern  neighbors,  and  the  so-called  sec¬ 
ond  and  third  Natchez  wars  added  to  the  difficulties  of  Louisiana. 
Bienville,  too,  was  again  disturbed  by  English  overtures  to  the 
Choctaw.  Prices  of  Indian  goods  were  lowered  at  Mobile,  re¬ 
wards  offered  for  Chickasaw  scalps,  and  at  length  the  Choctaw 
were  induced  to  throw  all  their  weight  against  the  Chickasaw. 
In  a  great  attack  in  January,  1723,  they  were  said  to  have  killed 
some  four  hundred  English  Indians,  and  to  have  laid  waste  to 
the  largest  Chickasaw  town.  The  disruption  of  the  Chickasaw 
had  begun.44  In  August,  1722,  they  had  been  invited  by  South 
Carolina  to  remove  to  the  vacant  lands  south  of  the  Savannah. 
In  1723  a  small  band  settled  near  Savannah  Town,  and  gave 
considerable  aid  against  the  Yamasee.  Other  bands  of  Chick¬ 
asaw  found  asylum  among  the  Cherokee  and  Creeks,  and  joined 
in  the  intertribal  wars.45  But  in  1724  Bienville  brought  the 
western  towns  into  peace  with  Louisiana.46 

This  peace,  however,  proved  more  profitable  to  the  English 
than  to  the  French.  Early  in  1725  Bienville  was  recalled,  and 
Indian  affairs  in  Louisiana  suffered  from  his  absence.  The 
Carolina  Indian  act  of  1725  made  special  provision  to  encourage 
trade  with  the  Choctaw  as  well  as  the  Chickasaw.  In  August, 
1725,  six  Choctaw  headmen  came  to  Fitch,  at  the  Upper  Creeks, 
to  sue  for  peace.  A  great  part  of  the  nation,  he  reported  to 

44  Arch.  Nat.,  col.  C13,  A  6,  ff.  146f„  172-75,  303-11 ;  La  Harpe,  Journal 
historique  [January],  July,  1720;  November  12,  1721;  April  18,  May  1, 
July  6,  1722;  January,  1723;  Charlevoix,  Histoire  et  description  generate, 
1744,  VI.  271 ;  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane,  pp.  157,  163  f. ;  Swanton,  Indian 
Tribes  of  the  Lower  Mississippi,  pp.  206-20. 

45  JC,  August  4,  9,  1727,  report  of  a  raid  under  the  Squirrel  King  against 
the  Yamasee. 

48  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane,  pp.  206  f. 


274 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Charles  Town,  was  disaffected  to  the  French  ‘and  might  be 
brought  into  our  Interest.’  The  Choctaw  were  therefore  invited 
to  send  down  their  chiefs  to  Carolina.  In  the  fall  the  Oakchoy 
Captain,  ‘a  politick  fellow,’  went  west  to  offer  his  escort.  He 
was  accompanied  by  several  traders,  with  goods  to  reopen  the 
trade.  But  one  of  these  traders,  John  Gillespie,  was  attacked, 
and  his  man  killed.  ‘Now  its  all  spoilt,’  lamented  the  Coosaw 
King  of  the  Choctaw,  who  for  several  years  had  been  trying  to 
open  the  path  to  the  English.  Boisbriant  and  Perier  were  still 
fearful,  however,  that  the  Choctaw  would  succumb,  and  with 
them,  the  colony.  Hence  the  extraordinary  French  diplomatic 
efforts  between  1726  and  1728,  in  Florida  as  well  as  on  their 
own  borders.  To  be  sure  they  still  lacked  the  essential  reserves 
of  presents  and  trade.  However,  in  1728,  they  were  able  to  use 
the  Choctaw  to  good  effect  to  menace  English  traders  among  the 
Chickasaw,  and  to  awe  the  Creeks.  In  that  year  Jordan  Roche, 
for  many  years  the  most  enterprising  of  the  distant  traders, 
wrote  from  the  Chickasaws  to  Glover  that  the  French  had  sent 
a  ‘bloody  flag’  through  all  their  Indian  towns,  to  prepare  a 
punitive  attack  upon  the  Upper  Creeks  ‘for  intermeddling  with 
the  Spanish  Indians.’  But  next  year  Louisiana  was  again  in  a 
fever  of  anxiety  over  the  threatened  defection  of  the  Choctaw 
to  the  English  trade  and  alliance.47 

Such  was  the  situation  on  the  Louisiana  border  a  dozen 
years  after  the  French  colony  had  been  saved  by  Bienville’s 
vigor  and  the  outbreak  of  the  Yamasee  War.  In  1729  there 
developed  the  great  Natchez  conspiracy,  involving  also  the 
Chickasaw  and  Choctaw.  The  massacre  at  Natchez  was  appar¬ 
ently  part  of  a  scheme  to  root  out  all  the  French  on  the  lower 
Mississippi.  Coveteousness  of  English  goods,  but  probably  not 
direct  English  pressure,  was  the  efficient  cause.  The  Choctaw, 
however,  broke  faith  with  their  fellow-conspirators  and  the 
tragedy  of  the  Natchez  followed,  the  first  chapter  in  the  series 
of  Indian  wars  on  the  Louisiana  border  which  finally  destroyed 


«  JC,  June  17,  1724;  August  24,  December  3,  1725;  JCHA,  December  3, 
1725;  April  10,  1728;  Fitch  journal  in  Mereness  (ed.),  Travels,  pp.  194, 
196,  202,  206  f. ;  Fitch  to  Middleton,  August  4,  1725, .  in  JC,  August  24,  1725 
(not  in  Mereness)  ;  C.O.  5:412,  no.  60,  act  of  April  17,  1725;  Arch.  Nat., 
col  C13,  A  10,  ff.  138-41,  158-60,  215-19,  223-5,  228  f.,  230-39,  251  f„  273  f.; 
Canadian  Archives  Report  for  1905,  I.  453-5,  457;  Heinrich,  La  Louisiane, 
pp.  205-28. 


I 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST  275 

the  power  of  the  western  English  clients,  ‘our  old  friendly 
Chikkasah.’48 

Meanwhile,  French  fears  for  the  Choctaw  were  matched  by 
growing  English  fears  for  the  loyalty  of  their  own  best  friends, 
the  Cherokee.  For  a  decade  after  1717  the  mountaineers  had 
been  regarded  at  Charles  Town  as  the  most  faithful  of  allies. 
Their  chronic  wars  with  the  French  Indians  of  the  Illinois 
country  in  a  measure  guaranteed  immunity  from  French  influ¬ 
ence.  The  only  fear  had  been  that  the  French  might  join  their 
own  Indians  ‘to  reduce  them  to  the  obedience  and  dependence  of 
that  enterprising  nation.’  In  1717  that  danger  seemed  imminent ; 
the  threatened  alliance  of  Creeks  and  Seneca  was  thought  to  be 
part  of  a  great  French  plan  to  subdue  the  Cherokee.  In  1718 
the  governor  was  authorized  by  act  to  send  troops  to  their  aid 
if  the  French  should  join  the  Indians  in  the  rumored  Cherokee 
expedition.  ‘The  safety  of  this  Province  does,  under  God,  de¬ 
pend  on  the  friendship  of  the  Cherokees,’  the  assembly  de¬ 
clared.49  But  this  danger  passed.  ‘Very  hearty  to  the  English’ 
was  the  report  of  Gregory  Haines,  in  1723, 50  and  in  1725 
Chicken  found  them  wholly  committed  to  Carolina.  At  the 
Elejoy  council  they  promised  to  arrest  any  Frenchman  who 
came  among  them.51  Commissions  were  distributed  by  the  Caro¬ 
lina  governors  to  friendly  chiefs,  and  their  authority  was  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  Indian  agents.  Thus  in  1723  Outassatah,  of  Keo- 
wee,  was  confirmed  as  ‘King  of  the  Lower  Cherokee’  in  face  of 
the  claims  of  a  rival,  Konotiskee.52 

In  the  midst  of  the  alarms  of  1727,  however,  when  a  war 
with  the  Lower  Creeks  had  seemed  inevitable,  news  came  to 
Charles  Town  that  the  Tennessee  Warrior,  acknowledged 
‘King  of  the  Upper  Cherokee,’  had  lately  received  some  French 

48  Ibid.,  pp.  229-48.  Adair,  History  of  the  American  Indians,  pp.  3 
(Preface),  353.  Swanton,  Indian  Tribes  of  the  Lower  Mississippi,  pp.  221- 
51.  South  Carolina  Gazette,  April  27,  1734,  reported  that  the  ‘King  of  the 
Natchees,  a  nation  of  Western  Indians,  faithful  Friends  of  this  Province,’ 
had  come  down  and  asked  leave  to  settle  with  all  his  people  at  Savannah 
Town.  On  the  Louisiana  Indian  frontier  at  this  period  see  the  documents 
just  now  published  in  D.  Rowland  and  A.  G.  Sanders,  eds.,  Mississippi 
Provincial  Archives,  1729-1740,  I  (1927). 

40  Cooper  (ed.).  Statutes,  III.  39;  JIC,  July  19,  1718. 

60  C.O.  5 :359,  B  26.  Cf.  Barnwell’s  testimony,  JBT,  August  16,  1720. 

61  Mereness  (ed.),  Travels,  pp.  127,  138. 

62  C.O.  5:359,  B  48;  JCHA,  November  8,  1723. 


276 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Indians  who  came  to  sue  for  peace,  and  that  a  number  of 
Cherokee  had  returned  with  them.  In  the  spring,  it  was  said, 
the  Miamis  were  expected  in  the  Upper  Towns.  Eleazer  Wigan 
was  sent  at  once  on  a  secret  mission  to  defeat  these  overtures. 
The  Overhill  Cherokee  were  warned  that  these  French  Indians 
were  tools  of  the  whites  who  lived  among  them  and  who  sought 
this  peace  in  order  to  build  a  fort  in  the  Cherokee  country  and 
to  enslave  the  Indians.  The  French,  they  were  reminded,  lived 
so  far  from  the  Cherokee  country  that  they  could  neither  supply 
them  with  goods  nor  aid  them  against  their  enemies.  Peace  with 
the  French  Indians  was  denounced  as  ‘inconsistent  with  our 
Friendship.’  In  reply  to  these  remonstrances  the  Tennessee  War¬ 
rior  assured  Wigan  that  ‘it  is  only  with  red  men  I  talk — as  for 
whites  where  they  live,  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  them  and  they 
shall  never  come  here.’53 

The  Creek  situation  was  slowly  mending,  but  relations  with 
the  Cherokee  grew  more  and  more  perplexed.  Colonel  Herbert, 
as  Indian  commissioner,  made  repeated  journeys  to  the  moun¬ 
tains  to  regulate  the  traders  and  forestall  French  intrigue. 
Serious  disturbances  were  revealed  in  his  journal  of  1728: 
there  had  even  been  consultations  to  destroy  the  traders.  Early 
in  1729  the  committee  on  Indian  affairs  proposed  a  fort  in  the 
middle  settlements,  and  another  among  the  Creeks,  with  gar¬ 
risons  of  twenty-five  men,  ‘to  prevent  the  encroachments  of  the 
French  and  Spaniards.’  The  situation  was  especially  serious 
among  the  Overhill  towns,  the  bulwark  against  the  French 
Indians  of  the  Northwest.  The  Long  Warrior  of  Tennessee 
continued  to  champion  peace  with  the  French  Indians,  but  was 
opposed  by  the  head-warrior  of  Great  Tellico,  the  famous  Moy- 
toy.54  With  the  spring  of  1730  ominous  signs  of  Cherokee  dis¬ 
content  again  appeared. 

Across  this  stage,  set,  perhaps,  for  tragedy,  there  strode  in 
1730  the  mock-heroic  figure  of  Sir  Alexander  Cuming.  His  self- 
appointed  ‘mission’  to  the  Cherokee  with  its  aftermath,  the  visit 
of  the  seven  Cherokee  Indians  to  England  and  the  noteworthy 
treaty  with  the  Board  of  Trade,  was  perhaps  the  most  singular 
incident  in  southern  border  history. 

63  JC,  August  30-September  1,  1727;  C.O.  5 :387  (Wigan  to  Middleton, 
October  7,  1727). 

64  JC,  February  22,  1727/8;  January  24,  February  7,  1728/9;  JCHA, 
July  16,  1728. 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


277 


Sir  Alexander  Cuming  of  Coulter  was  a  Scottish  baronet 
and  advocate;  born  about  1690,  he  died,  a  poor  brother  of 
Charterhouse,  in  1775.  There  were  many  evidences  of  an  er¬ 
ratic  mind  in  the  checkered  career  of  the  self-vaunted  ‘King  of 
the  Cherokees.’  At  one  period  he  dabbled  in  alchemy.  For  nearly 
thirty  years  (1737-1766)  he  was  confined  as  a  debtor  to  the 
limits  of  the  Fleet.  A  chronic  projector,  his  schemes  ranged 
from  a  plan  for  banks  to  support  the  colonial  currencies  to  an 
absurd  proposal  to  pay  off  the  British  national  debt  by  set¬ 
tling  three  hundred  thousand  Jewish  families  in  the  Cherokee 
mountains.55 

Cuming’s  visit  to  South  Carolina  in  1729-1730  was  in  no 
sense  an  official  mission.56  ‘The  Great  King,’  he  told  the  In¬ 
dians  at  Nequasse,  ‘did  not  know  of  his  coming  among  them.’ 
At  Charles  Town  he  busied  himself  during  the  winter  with  his 
currency  scheme.57  On  the  eve  of  his  return  to  England,  how¬ 
ever,  he  decided  to  make  a  rapid  excursion  into  the  back-coun¬ 
try  and  the  mountains.  With  tourist  enterprise  he  crowded  this 
journey  of  nearly  a  thousand  miles  by  rough  trading-paths  into 
a  single  month  (March  13  to  April  13,  1730).  To  the  Con- 
garees  and  beyond  he  was  escorted  by  Colonel  Chicken  and  the 
surveyor,  George  Hunter.58  But  their  pace  was  too  slow,  and 
the  impatient  Briton  hurried  on  to  Keowee  and  engaged  a 
trader,  Ludovick  Grant,  as  his  guide.  Sir  Alexander  was  a  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  he  seems  to  have  set  out  as  a 
scientific  explorer  rather  than  a  political  agent,  searching  for 
minerals,  especially  iron-stone,  medicinal  herbs,  and  the  ‘natural 
curiosities’  of  the  land.  Before  he  reached  the  first  Cherokee 
town  he  had  gathered  so  many  specimens  that  his  ‘intent  in 

55  Notes  and  Queries,  first  series,  V.  257,  278  f. ;  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  XIII,  294  f. 

56  The  sources  for  this  extraordinary  incident  are :  Ludovick  Grant’s 
deposition,  January  12,  1756,  in  SCHGM,  X.  54  ff . ;  and  two  accounts  based 
on  Cuming’s  journal  in  London  Daily  Journal,  September  30,  October  8,  1730. 
Cf.  S.  G.  Drake,  ‘Early  History  of  Georgia,’  in  New  England  Historical  and 
Genealogical  Register,  1872,  pp.  262  ff. ;  on  this  see  note  in  Bibliography. 

57  See  his  memorial  to  Newcastle,  ‘Observations  relating  to  the  present 
ill-state  of  South  Carolina,’  in  C.O.  5  :361,  C  99.  The  list  of  the  original 
members  of  St.  Andrew’s  Society,  Charleston,  1729-1730,  includes  ‘Sir  Alex. 
Cumming,  Bart.’  ( Year  Book  of  the  City  of  Charleston,  1894,  Appendix, 
p.  282.) 

58  On  this  journey  Hunter  revised  Herbert’s  map  of  the  Cherokee  coun¬ 
try,  and  the  route  thither.  This  map,  with  itinerary,  is  in  the  Library  of 
Congress. 


278 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


going  up  to  the  Cherokee  Mountains  was  more  than  answered 
by  the  Discoveries  already  made.’ 

But  another  purpose  had  taken  shape  in  his  mind  as  he 
listened  to  accounts  by  frontier  settlers  and  traders  of  the 
dangerous  posture  of  Indian  affairs.  In  the  settlements  there 
had  been  rumors  when  he  left  that  the  Indians  would  rise  in 
the  spring,  and  on  the  way  Captain  Russell  had  told  him  that  a 
French  agent  had  been  busy  for  two  years  among  the  Lower 
Cherokee.  At  Keowee,  too,  the  traders  talked  of  the  sullen 
temper  of  the  Indians.  It  was  at  Keowee  that  Sir  Alexander’s 
enterprise,  mad  or  inspired,  was  first  revealed.  On  the  night 
of  March  23  the  Indians  were  assembled  as  usual  in  the  town- 
house.  There  Sir  Alexander  dramatically  appeared,  armed  ‘with 
three  cases  of  Pistols,  a  Gun  and  a  Sword  under  a  Great  Coat.’ 
Against  this  extraordinary  breach  of  decorum  the  traders  ex¬ 
postulated  in  vain.  Cuming  had  determined,  single-handed  if 
need  be,  to  overawe  the  Cherokee  and  force  them  to  submit  to 
the  British  interest.  Of  what  ensued  after  Sir  Alexander’s 
speech  in  praise  of  King  George  two  versions  were  given,  the 
baronet’s  and  Ludovick  Grant’s.  They  differed  chiefly  in  inter¬ 
pretation.  According  to  Grant,  Cuming  invited  the  traders,  and 
they  in  turn  persuaded  the  Indians,  to  join  in  drinking  the 
health  of  His  Britannic  Majesty  on  bended  knee.  This  strange 
ceremony  Cuming  chose  to  regard  as  an  acknowledgment  of 
‘his  Majesty  King  George’s  Sovereignty  over  them,’  such  a 
submission,  in  fact,  as  ‘they  never  before  made  either  to  God 
or  Man.’  Intoxicated  by  success  in  his  vice-regal  role,  he  sum¬ 
moned  a  general  council  of  the  three  divisions  of  the  Cherokee 
to  meet  at  Nequasse  on  April  3. 

In  the  interval  Sir  Alexander  continued  his  hasty  progress 
through  the  lower,  middle,  and  upper  settlements  as  far  as 
those  remote  towns  on  the  western  waters,  Great  Tellico  and 
Great  Tennessee.  ‘He  seldom  staid  above  two  or  three  hours,’ 
Grant  later  deposed,  ‘never  above  a  night  at  any  place.’  Every¬ 
where  he  collected  minerals  and  herbs,  everywhere  he  repeated 
his  speech  and  recorded  in  his  notebook  the  names  of  headmen 
and  conjurers  whom  he  had  made  his  friends.  To  him  Moytoy 
revealed  his  ambition  to  be  made  Emperor  of  all  the  Cherokee. 
Several  towns  had  already  agreed,  but  ‘now  it  must  be  what- 


THE  OLD  SOUTHWEST 


279 


ever  Sir  Alexander  pleased.’  Cuming  in  turn  was  anxious  to 
add  to  his  collection  one  of  the  Indian  ‘crowns.’  ‘It  resembles  a 
wig,’  said  Grant,  ‘and  is  made  of  Possum’s  hair  Dyed  Red  or 
Yellow.’  So  Moytoy  and  other  headmen  sent  messengers  to 
bring  down  to  Nequasse  the  famous  ‘Crown  of  Tennessee.’ 

The  climax  was  reached  when  Cuming  returned  with  a  great 
train  of  Overhill  Cherokee  to  Nequasse  Town.  ‘This  was  a 
Day  of  Solemnity,’  ran  the  baronet’s  inflated  account,69  ‘the 
greatest  that  ever  was  seen  in  the  Country ;  there  was  Singing, 
Dancing,  Feasting,  making  of  Speeches,  the  Creation  of  Moytoy 
Emperor,  with  the  unanimous  consent  of  all  the  Head  Men  as¬ 
sembled  from  the  different  Towns  of  the  Nation,  a  Declaration 
of  their  resigning  their  Crown,  Eagles  Tails,  Scalps  of  their 
Enemies,  as  an  Emblem  of  their  all  owning  his  Majesty  King 
George’s  Sovereignty  over  them,  at  the  desire  of  Sir  Alexander 
Cuming,  in  whom  an  absolute  unlimited  Power  was  placed, 
without  which  he  could  not  be  able  to  answer  to  his  Majesty  for 
their  Conduct.’  Even  though  substantial  discount  be  made  for 
Cuming’s  exuberance,  the  eccentric  Scot  had  evidently  appealed 
to  the  dramatic  instincts  of  the  Indians,  and  had  made  a  notable 
impression  at  a  crucial  moment  in  their  relations  with  the  Eng¬ 
lish.  Of  course  they  had  no  real  notion  of  acknowledging 
English  ‘sovereignty,’  much  less  of  parting  with  their  lands  to 
Cuming  himself  or  to  ‘the  Great  Man  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Great  Water.’  Cuming  knew  that  doubters  in  Charles  Town 
and  in  England  would  discredit  his  claims.  He  therefore  invited 
the  Cherokee  to  send  some  of  their  headmen  to  bear  him  com¬ 
pany  on  his  return  to  England.  They  readily  consented;  only 
the  dangerous  illness  of  his  wife,  Moytoy  protested,  kept  him 
from  joining  the  embassy.  Of  the  six  Indians  whom  Sir  Alex¬ 
ander  selected,  only  two  were  actually  chiefs.  These  were  Ouka 
Ulah,  ‘Head  King  that  is  to  be,’  head-warrior  of  Tasetche,  and 
the  Skalilosken  or  second  warrior,  who  was  also  by  right  a 
Ketagustah,  ‘Prince.’  Tathtowe  and  Kollanah  were  simply  X 
warriors;  they  were  to  appear,  however,  as  ‘Generals’  in  the 
London  press.  From  Tennessee,  remotest  of  the  Cherokee 
towns,  came  the  warriors  Clogoitta  and  Ukwaneequa.  The 
latter,  a  youth,  was  probably  the  famous  Little  Carpenter,  who 


ra  Daily  Journal,  October  8,  1730. 


280 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


in  his  prime  was  wont  to  recall  his  visit  to  England  and  ‘the 
great  King’s  Talk.’  Near  Charles  Town  a  seventh  Indian  was 
added,  by  chance,  to  the  party.  Without  credentials  from  the 
Nequasse  council,  Onaconoa’s  name  did  not  appear  in  the  Lon¬ 
don  treaty.60 

Nursing  a  grandiose  dream  of  a  vice-royalty  of  the  Chero¬ 
kee,  Sir  Alexander  with  his  party  took  passage  for  England, 
May  13,  1730,  on  the  Fox  man-of-war.  Little  profit  did  Cum¬ 
ing  reap  for  himself  from  his  bizarre  American  adventure. 
But  for  the  southern  frontier  he  had  achieved  a  diplomatic 
tour  de  force.  English  prestige  was  decisively  restored  in  the 
mountains.  In  England  his  proteges  furnished  the  sensation 
of  the  London  season.  Their  appearance  at  court  and  every¬ 
where  in  town  no  doubt  dramatised  for  many  Englishmen  the 
existence  of  a  frontier  of  empire  of  which  few  had  yet  been 
aware. 

Significantly,  the  year  1730  saw  the  rise  of  a  new  English 
interest  in  Carolina.  It  saw,  also,  the  beginnings  of  a  new  ad¬ 
vance  of  English  colonization  upon  the  southern  frontier. 

60  See  below,  pp.  295-302,  especially  pp.  299  f. 


CHAPTER  XII 


The  Board  of  Trade  and  Southern  Colonization 

1721-1730 

Georgia  was  the  last  successful  enterprise  of  English  colo¬ 
nization  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States ;  it  was  also  one 
of  the  first  notable  achievements  of  modern  philanthropy.  The 
dual  character  of  the  project  was  widely  advertised  by  the 
charter  and  in  the  promotion  literature  of  the  Trustees:  it  has 
become  a  commonplace  of  colonial  history.  But  how  did  these 
two  movements,  charitable  and  strategic,  chance  to  converge  in 
1730-1732? 

Since  the  beginning  of  effective  English  occupation  of 
Carolina,  in  1670,  the  region  south  of  the  Savannah  had  re¬ 
peatedly  attracted  colonial  projectors  as  different  in  station  and 
interests  as  Lord  Cardross  and  Captain  Thomas  Nairne.  The 
Margravate  of  Azilia  had  exactly  coincided  with  the  later 
Georgia  tract;  the  Golden  Islands  were,  of  course,  the  sea- 
islands  of  the  Georgia  coast.  Barnwell’s  scheme  for  the  forti¬ 
fication  of  the  mouth  of  the  Altamaha  had  assumed  that  this 
fort,  and  the  other  frontier  garrisons  which  he  advocated,  would 
become  centres  of  English  settlement.  These  projects  revealed 
a  continuous  interest  in  a  region  which  geography  and  the 
strategy  of  empire  had  marked  as  a  zone  for  English  expansion. 
Reinforcing  the  propaganda  from  South  Carolina,  the  pro¬ 
jectors  asserted  the  claims  of  frontier  defense  in  the  South  at 
a  time  when  the  Board  of  Trade  was  just  awakening  to  the 
peril  of  French  encirclement.  By  1720  the  Board  was  fully  com¬ 
mitted  to  the  settlement  as  well  as  the  fortification  of  the  land 
which  became  Georgia. 

But  for  more  than  a  decade  various  obstacles  prevented  the 
fruition  of  this  purpose.  Despite  the  zeal  of  the  Board,  the 
Privy  Council  was  indifferent.  Moreover,  until  1729,  so  long, 
that  is,  as  the  Proprietors  held  title  to  the  soil,  the  proprietary 
land  policy  checked  all  efforts  at  southward  expansion,  either 
by  planting  from  South  Carolina  or  by  diverting  the  mounting 
stream  of  foreign  Protestant  emigration  to  the  southern 
frontier. 


[281  ] 


282 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


‘The  Misfortune  of  this  Country  at  Present,’  wrote  Nichol¬ 
son  in  1724,  ‘is  the  Uncertainty  .  .  .  whither  his  Majesty  will 
keep  it  or  the  Lords  Proprietors  be  restored,  and  their  Lord- 
ships  having  been  Pleased  to  shutt  up  their  Land  Office  which 
hinders  people  from  taking  up  lands  in  Order  to  Settle  the 
Frontiers  especially  to  the  Southward  which  Borders  on  the 
Spaniards  and  French  who  are  now  United  and  we  find  that 
they  are  not  only  Endeavouring  to  sett  their  Indians  upon  ours 
but  likewise  Inveighling  them  from  us.’1  From  1719  to  1730 
the  land  office  remained  closed.  In  self-justification  the  Pro¬ 
prietors  pointed  to  the  arrears  of  quit-rents,  and  the  obstacles 
Nicholson  had  placed  in  the  way  of  their  collection.  Land 
grants  would  be  resumed,  declared  their  secretary,  Richard 
Shelton,  ‘as  soon  as  the  present  Governor  is  removed.’2  Indif¬ 
ferent,  seemingly,  to  the  need  of  repeopling  and  extending  the 
ravaged  Carolina  frontiers,  the  Proprietors  made  use  of  their 
ownership  of  the  land  as  a  lever  to  secure  restoration  of  their 
powers  of  government.  The  colonists  were  naturally  confirmed 
thereby  in  their  anti-proprietary  bias. 

In  the  midst  of  this  quarrel  the  provincial  government  de¬ 
veloped  an  interesting  scheme  for  border  settlements,  which  had 
an  important  place  in  the  evolution  of  the  Georgia  enterprise. 
It  served  to  link  the  projects  of  Barnwell  with  the  Board  of 
Trade’s  noteworthy  instructions  of  1730  to  Governor  Robert 
Johnson  for  the  establishment  of  townships  on  the  Carolina 
rivers,  including  the  Savannah  and  the  Altamaha,  instructions 
which  determined  the  precise  locale  and  the  border  character 
of  Oglethorpe’s  colony. 

Nearly  a  decade  before  1730  this  policy  in  all  essentials  was 
proposed  by  the  South  Carolina  assembly.  The  basis,  apparently, 
was  John  Barnwell’s  idea  of  a  settlement  at  the  Altamaha.  In¬ 
deed,  Barnwell  was  chairman  of  the  committee  of  the  Com¬ 
mons  House  which  proposed  an  address  to  the  home  govern¬ 
ment,  in  June,  1722,  for  grants  of  land  for  townships  to  be  set 
out  on  the  Savannah  and  the  Altamaha  Rivers.3  But  without 
waiting  for  proprietary  consent  or  royal  aid,  the  province  had 

1  C.O.  5  :38 7,  f.  68. 

2  C.O.  5  :359,  B  103,  104. 

3  JCHA,  June  19,  1722. 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


283 


already  attempted  a  beginning  of  the  novel  policy,  novel,  that 
is,  upon  the  southern  border,  though  customary  in  New  Eng¬ 
land  and  already  adopted  by  Virginia.  In  July,  1721,  a  law  was 
enacted  ‘for  preventing  the  Desertion  of  Insolvent  Debtors, 
and  for  the  better  settling  of  the  Frontiers  of  this  Province.’4 
For  seven  years  debtors  were  granted  protection  from  civil  suits 
for  less  than  £30,  provided  they  should  reside  beyond  Three 
Runs,  about  twenty  miles  east  of  Fort  Moore.  Near  that  gar¬ 
rison  the  Indian  commissioners  were  directed  to  lay  out  a  town 
and  common,  with  three  hundred  half-acre  lots,  the  lands  to  be 
purchased  by  the  public  and  distributed  among  those  who  would 
settle  there.  Though  the  township  project  seems  to  have  origi¬ 
nated  with  the  assembly,  it  was  warmly  championed  by  Nichol¬ 
son,  who  appealed  in  vain  to  Lord  Carteret  to  permit  at  least 
the  settlement  of  ‘the  Farthest  Frontiers.’  ‘My  Lord,’  he  wrote, 
‘as  Old  as  I  am  yet  I  hope  God  willing  to  live  to  see  this  Prov¬ 
ince  when  the  Frontiers  are  well  Secured  the  most  flourishing 
of  this  Continent.’5 

The  most  striking  illustration  of  the  proprietary  blight  was 
the  collapse  of  the  first  attempt  of  the  Swiss  entrepreneur, 
Jean  Pierre  Purry,  to  settle  a  Swiss  colony  upon  the  southern 
margins  of  South  Carolina. 

In  1722  Lord  Carteret  received  a  memorial6  from  M. 
Fischer  de  Reichenbach,  a  member  of  the  council  of  Berne,  on 
behalf  of  a  company  of  well-to-do  Bernese  citizens.  They 
asked  for  a  grant  of  a  considerable  tract  in  Carolina,  with  full 
rights  of  government,  the  land  to  be  held  upon  a  military 
tenure.  A  military  barrier  colony  was  foreshadowed,  peopled 
by  ‘les  meilleurs  milices  de  l’Europe.’  Two  years  later  appeared 
upon  the  scene  one  of  the  most  persistent  and  ambitious  colonial 
promoters  of  that  era. 

A  biographer,  writing  in  1746,  recalled  that  Purry  was  born 
at  Neuchatel,  circa  1670,  and  that  he  had  engaged  for  a  time 
in  the  wine  trade.  But  meeting  misfortune,  about  1713  he  had 
gone  out  to  Batavia,  under  contract  with  the  chamber  of 
Amsterdam  for  the  East  Indies.  From  this  period  dated  his 

4  Cooper  (ed.),  Statutes,  III.  122-4. 

5C.O.  5:387,  f.  51. 

0  Ibid.,  ff.  51,  52,  53. 


284 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


first  colonial  project,  for  the  settlement  of  the  ‘Pays  des  Nuits’ 
near  Java.  On  his  return  voyage  to  Europe  he  was  so  struck 
with  the  prosperity  of  the  colony  at  the  Cape  that  he  also  pro¬ 
posed  to  the  Dutch  East  India  Company  the  colonization  of 
the  ‘Pays  des  Cafres,’  in  South  Africa.  In  two  memorials  in 
support  of  these  schemes,  published  at  Amsterdam  in  1718,  he 
expounded  for  the  first  time  his  pseudo-scientific  theory  that 
the  ideal  climate  throughout  the  world,  in  both  hemispheres, 
exists  at  or  near  the  parallel  of  33°.  His  proposals  rejected  in 
the  Netherlands,  he  removed  to  France,  where,  soon  after,  the 
collapse  of  the  Mississippi  Bubble  swept  away  the  earnings  of 
his  Batavian  plantations,  but  not  his  zeal  for  colonization.  In¬ 
stead,  by  the  same  account,  ‘his  former  Scheme  reviv’d  and 
having  modell’d  it  to  the  French  Settlements  he  presented  it 
to  some  of  the  Prime  Ministers,  who  refer’d  it  to  the  Royal 
Academy  of  Sciences.’7  But  again  his  hopes  faded;  then,  in 
1724,  he  turned  to  the  English  ambassador  at  Paris,  Horatio 
Walpole.  Apparently  to  escape  his  importunities,  Walpole  at 
length  agreed  to  forward  his  memorial  to  the  English  court. 
Newcastle  in  due  course  referred  it  to  the  Board  of  Trade.  In 
this  first,  brief  document,  Purry  proposed  to  carry  over  to 
Carolina  a  colony  of  six  hundred  Swiss,  organized  in  a  regi¬ 
ment  under  his  command,  to  be  settled  near  the  parallel  of  33° 
‘en  qualite  de  soldats  ouvriers.’8 

The  larger  bearings  of  his  project  Purry  soon  revealed  in  a 
striking  contribution  to  the  promotion  literature  of  the  southern 
frontier.  This  was  his  Memorial  presented  to  his  Grace  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle ,  printed  in  London  in  1724  in  both  English 
and  French  editions.  Accepting  as  true  the  current  descriptions 
of  Carolina  as  one  of  the  richest  countries  in  the  world — in 
this  vein  Montgomery  had  excelled — Purry  expounded  again 

’See  pp.  [3]-4  (‘Advertisement’)  of  J.  P.  Purry,  A  Method  for  Deter¬ 
mining  the  Best  Climate  of  the  Earth,  London,  1744.  The  pamphlet  was  a 
translation  of  Purry’s  Memoire  sur  le  Pais  des  Cafres,  et  la  Terre  de  Nuyts, 
Amsterdam,  1718.  Apropos  of  Purry’s  climate  theory  the  anonymous  biogra¬ 
pher  remarked  ‘that  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  to  whom  I  communicated  it,  agreed 
in  general  to  the  Principles  of  it,  with  a  Proviso  that  the  Nature  of  each 
Country  and  Soil  should  be  first  examined  before  Settlements  were  at¬ 
tempted.’ 

8  C.O.  5  :359,  B  7.  See  also  Purry  to  Walpole,  Paris,  June  6,  1724,  and 
Walpole  to  Newcastle,  Paris,  June  7,  1724,  in  B.M.  Add.  MSS  32,739 
(Newcastle  Papers,  LIV),  ff.  39,  41  f . 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


285 


his  theory  of  the  ideal  climate.  The  English,  he  proposed,  should 
secure  control  of  the  33°  zone  in  North  America  by  a  scheme 
of  systematic  colonization.  The  Carolina  which  Purry  defined 
as  the  American  paradise  and  the  appointed  theatre  of  Anglo- 
French  conflict  embraced  both  Azilia  and  most  of  the  region 
claimed  by  Coxe  as  Carolana-Florida.  For  this  vast  domain 
Purry  now  suggested  a  more  appropriate  name,  Georgia,  or 
Georgina.  Year  by  year  the  English  frontiers  should  be  ad¬ 
vanced  from  the  Carolina  settlements  to  the  Mississippi.  Cir¬ 
cumstances  in  Europe,  he  demonstrated,  were  favorable.  In 
Switzerland  the  depression  following  the  wars,  and  elsewhere 
among  the  Protestants  of  the  Continent  religious  disabilities  as 
well,  made  it  possible  to  draw  great  numbers  of  settlers  to 
America,  by  judicious  advertising,  generous  grants  of  land, 
and  the  offer  of  transportation  in  the  King’s  ships.  Purry  did 
not  ignore  the  international  aspect  of  the  scheme.  The  Com- 
pagnie  des  Indes,  by  its  recent  activities  in  sending  colonists  to 
Louisiana,  had  made  counter-action  by  the  English  imperative. 
The  French,  indeed,  might  shut  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi 
to  the  ‘Georgians,’  but  the  English  in  turn  could  cut  off  the 
trade  of  the  upper  valley  and  make  Louisiana  more  than  ever 
a  sink  of  French  revenues.  Seated  on  the  Mississippi  the  Eng¬ 
lish  would  be  in  a  position  to  defend  themselves  against  the 
growing  French  peril,  and  if  necessary,  to  attack  their  rivals. 

Chimerical  though  it  was,  Purry’s  scheme  had  this  interest, 
that  it  was  conceived  in  the  prevailing  spirit  of  Anglo-French 
rivalry,  which  was  quite  as  much  the  atmosphere  of  the  decade 
that  produced  Georgia  as  of  the  earlier  period  of  the  south¬ 
western  projects  of  Coxe  and  Nairne.  For  such  spacious  pro¬ 
grams  of  western  expansion  the  temper  of  the  England  of 
Walpole  and  Newcastle  was  not,  of  course,  propitious. 

Even  the  modest  beginnings  proposed  by  Purry  encountered 
formidable  obstacles.  The  Board  of  Trade  commended  the 
Swiss  colony  plan  to  the  Proprietors;9  it  was  frustrated  by 
their  fickleness  when  they  repeatedly  altered  their  terms  of 
assistance.  In  January,  1725,  Purry  appeared  before  the  Caro¬ 
lina  board,  arguing  that  his  projected  settlement  ‘would  not 

9  C.O.  5:401,  p.  33:  Board  of  Trade  report  to  committee  of  Privy  Coun¬ 
cil,  May  26,  1732,  containing  history  of  Purry  grant. 


286 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


only  strengthen  that  province  but  be  a  Barrier  to  the  rest  of 
his  Majesties  Colonies  upon  the  Continent  of  America.’10  At 
this  time  the  Proprietors  agreed  to  find  transportation  for  six 
hundred  colonists,  and  their  secretary  was  ordered  to  treat 
with  the  merchants.  Two  months  later  they  sought  to  modify 
the  agreement,  offering  Purry  instead  a  barony  of  12,000  acres, 
on  or  near  the  Savannah  River,  if  he  would  himself  carry  over 
300  people  within  a  year,  and  promising  him  another  barony 
as  soon  as  1200  colonists  should  be  transported.11  But  Purry 
demurred,  and  at  length  the  Proprietors  arranged  with  his 
agent,  Jean  Watt,  to  assume  the  charge  of  transporting  the 
first  600  colonists,  upon  condition  of  the  payment  after  three 
years  of  a  3d.  quit-rent.12 

Purry  was  already  in  Switzerland,  recruiting  his  colony. 
Soon,  indeed,  the  activities  of  ‘Purry  et  Cie.’  of  Neuchatel  in 
distributing  advertisements  which  painted  Carolina  as  ‘one  of 
the  finest  countries  of  the  universe,’  brought  concern  to  the 
authorities  of  Berne,  anxious  to  check  the  emigration  fever.13 
By  such  propaganda  during  1725-1726  Purry  succeeded,  how¬ 
ever,  in  attracting  numerous  colonists,  and  in  securing  promises 
of  financial  support  from  several  Swiss  capitalists.  Two  hun¬ 
dred  would-be  Carolinians  were  assembled  near  Geneva  by  M. 
Yernet.  In  September,  1726,  more  than  a  hundred  made  their 
way  to  the  rendezvous  at  Neuchatel.  Popular  interest  was 
growing,  and  Watt  believed  that  six  hundred  volunteers  could 
readily  have  been  obtained.  But  once  more  the  Proprietors  had 
changed  their  minds  about  the  contract.  Withdrawing  their 
pledge  to  transport  the  first  detachment,  they  had  granted  in¬ 
stead  to  two  London  merchants,  Stephen  Godin  and  Jacob 
Satur,  a  patent  of  12,000  acres  in  trust  for  Purry,  on  condition 
that  he  convey  two  hundred  colonists  at  his  own  expense. 
When  this  latest  tergiversation  became  known,  Purry’s  backers 
at  once  withdrew  their  support.  With  success  in  sight,  the  enter- 

10  C.O.  5  :292,  p.  149. 

“Ibid.,  p.  151. 

12  Shelton  to  Popple,  June  8,  1725,  in  C.O.  5:359,  B  104;  Jean  Watt, 
memorial,  July  9,  1725,  in  C.O.  5 :383,  no.  10;  Purry,  memorial,  1730,  in 
C.O.  5:361,  C  80. 

UAHR.  XXII.  25  f.,  131  f.;  Purry,  Memorial,  Augusta,  1880,  pp.  4  f. ; 
A.  B.  Faust,  Guide  to  Materials  for  American  History  in  Swiss  and  Aus¬ 
trian  Archives,  1916,  p„  42. 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


287 


prise  collapsed.  ‘For  want  of  one  hundred  pounds  Sterling,’ 
declared  an  agent,  Purry  had  to  desert  his  penniless  and  rioting 
colonists  in  Neuchatel.14  To  this  ignominious  issue  had  come 
the  grand  design  to  drive  a  wedge  of  Protestant  settlement 
into  the  heart  of  Louisiana. 

But  Purry’s  first  project  did  not  altogether  fail.  With  the 
earlier  promotion  pamphlets  his  advertisements  perhaps  helped 
to  direct  English  attention  to  the  southern  frontier.  Purry’s 
own  interest  was  firmly  fixed  in  Carolina;  several  years  later 
he  planted  Purrysburgh  as  a  feeble  sister-colony  of  Georgia. 
Meanwhile  Purry  and  Watt  had  won  valuable  friends  in  Eng¬ 
land  for  their  proposals  to  colonize  foreign  Protestants  upon 
the  southern  frontier.  In  particular,  they  had  established  con¬ 
tacts  with  a  notable  group  of  earnest  and  philanthropic  clergy¬ 
men  and  reformers,  Hales,  Hodges,  Newman,  and  others  who 
made  up  the  circle  of  the  famous  Dr.  Thomas  Bray.  Bray  and 
his  friends  played  a  noteworthy  part  a  little  later  in  initiating 
the  events  which  led  to  the  establishment  of  Georgia,  a  colony 
designed  as  a  refuge  for  continental  Protestants  as  well  as  poor 
debtors.  Upon  opinion  in  Carolina  the  episode  had  produced  a 
confused  impression.  Though  the  prospect  of  Swiss  reinforce¬ 
ments  for  their  frontiers  was  apparently  welcomed,  one  anony¬ 
mous  pamphleteer  denounced  the  plan,  absurdly,  as  evidence  of 
a  proprietary  conspiracy  ‘to  sell  us  to  the  Swiss  Cantons.’15 

Another  proof  had  been  furnished,  at  all  events,  of  the  in¬ 
capacity  of  the  Lords  Proprietors,  whose  failures  as  wardens 
of  the  southern  marches  had  been  persistently  exploited  in  the 
Carolinian  propaganda  of  the  past  decade.  Though  1721  had 
seen  the  establishment  of  a  provisional  royal  government  and 
the  building  of  Fort  King  George,  the  provincial  government, 
through  its  agents,  continued  its  twofold  campaign  in  England 
in  opposition  to  the  Proprietors,  and  in  support  of  a  complete 
assumption  by  the  Crown  of  the  imperial  defense  problem  on 
the  southern  frontier.  The  instructions  of  1721  to  Francis 

14  C.O.  5 :387,  ff.  119,  120.  C.O.  5:383,  no.  31  (petition  of  Jean  Watt, 
1726  or  1727)  ;  C.O.  5:361,  C  80.  For  the  Proprietors’  version,  which  ignored 
the  breach  of  faith,  see  C.O.  5:290,  pp.  261  f .  See  B.M.  Add.  MSS  22680  for 
‘A  Short  Abstract  of  the  Contract  for  Transporting  a  Number  of  Swiss 
to  South  Carolina.’ 

u  The  Liberty  and  Property  of  British  Subjects  Asserted,  London,  1726, 
pp.  32  f. 


288 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Yonge  and  John  Lloyd,  the  first  regular  agents  maintained  by 
the  assembly,  repeatedly  recurred  to  settlement  and  defense.16 
The  frontiers,  they  were  reminded,  could  not  be  settled  until 
the  soil  was  vested  in  the  Crown,  when  it  would  still  be  neces¬ 
sary  ‘to  have  three  or  four  Regiments  sent  here  to  secure  the 
Frontiers.’  Meanwhile,  arrears  of  quit-rents  should  be  applied 
to  fortifications.  Land  should  be  assigned  each  officer  and  sol¬ 
dier  near  Altamaha  Fort,  as  Barnwell  had  proposed;  and 
another  fort  such  as  he  suggested  should  be  built  on  St. 
Simon’s  Island.  Port  Royal  was  recommended  as  a  port  of 
entry  ‘for  the  greater  Conveniency  of  Trade  and  Support  and 
Settlement  of  the  Southern  Fronteirs.’  ‘You  are  also  to  Repre¬ 
sent  the  dangerous  Consequence  of  the  French  and  Spaniards 
encroaching  on  Our  Frontiers  and  getting  the  Indians  into  their 
Interest  Especially  the  Creeks  and  Cherakees  which  in  Time 
of  War  may  be  Fatall  to  this  Province.’  In  August,  1722,  both 
houses  agreed  to  pay  the  passage  to  England  of  one  William 
Tempest,  who  had  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  new  French  set¬ 
tlement  at  New  Orleans,  and  of  ‘the  dayly  encroachments  they 
make  upon  the  Continent.’  In  December,  Yonge  was  charged 
to  make  use  of  Tempest’s  testimony.  The  Commons  further 
directed  that  the  agent  ‘apply  to  the  Government  that  in  case 
Gibraltar  and  Port  Mahon  be  delivered  up,  that  the  continent 
as  far  as  the  Mississippi  and  St.  Augustine  be  delivered  up  to 
the  English  as  part  of  the  equivalent.’17  In  succeeding  years 
these  themes  were  repeated  and  elaborated,  as  opportunities 
were  furnished  by  the  Anglo-Spanish  boundary  disputes  and 
by  the  attempts  of  the  Lords  Proprietors  to  recover  their 
government.18 

For  half  a  dozen  years  after  the  revolution  of  1719  the 
Lords  Proprietors,  as  a  corporate  body,  had  practically  ceased 
to  function;  from  July,  1719,  until  January,  1725,  indeed,  no 

19  C.O.  5:358,  A  48,  49.  The  act  of  September  21,  1721,  appointing  agents 
and  establishing  a  committee  of  correspondence  is  in  C.O.  5  :412. 

17  JC,  August  4,  1722;  JCHA,  December  7,  8,  1722.  Representation  of 
governor  and  council,  September  4,  1724,  in  C.O.  5 :359,  B  103.  See  also 
memorials  from  the  ‘inhabitants  of  Carolina’  and  from  the  ‘inhabitants  of 
the  parish  of  St.  Thomas  and  St.  Dennis,’  transmitted  in  1727,  in  C.O. 
5  :360,  C  6,  15. 

18  JC,  June  9,  1724:  the  speech  of  Nicholson  on  death  of  John  Barnwell 
referred  to  the  expectation  that  Barnwell  would  go  again  to  England  as 
agent. 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


289 


minutes  were  kept  in  their  journals.19  Then  for  a  few  years 
they  were  stirred  to  feeble  and  ineffectual  activity.  It  had  be¬ 
come  evident  that  the  veteran  Nicholson  would  not  return  to 
his  post  at  Charles  Town.  In  August,  1724,  Mr.  Bertie  sought 
the  support  of  the  President  of  the  Council,  Lord  Carlton,  for 
the  Proprietors’  plan  to  recover  their  powers  of  government. 
The  revolution  he  described  as  the  act  of  ‘some  needy  Tumul¬ 
tuous  Persons,’  and  he  charged  Nicholson  with  obstructing 
the  payment  of  quit-rents  and  other  dues.20  A  caveat  was  pre¬ 
pared  against  the  appointment  of  a  new  governor  without 
notice  to  the  Proprietors.  Colonel  Horsey  was  presented  as  the 
proprietary  nominee  for  the  place.21  But  this  appointment  was 
opposed  by  the  colony  agent,  Yonge,  who  offered  a  petition 
for  the  continuance  of  the  royal  government.  The  issue  was 
joined  before  the  committee  of  the  Privy  Council.  Yonge 
fought  successfully  for  delay  on  the  ground  of  Lord  Carteret’s 
absence  in  Ireland ;  he  sent  the  papers,  including  Shelton’s 
representation  of  the  Proprietors’  case,  to  South  Carolina.22 
In  May,  1726,  the  assembly  in  special  session  moved  again  for 
the  continuance  of  the  province  under  a  royal  governor  ‘as  the 
only  effectual  way  to  secure  the  same  to  his  Majesty  in  case  of 
an  invasion  by  any  Foreign  Power.’23  The  provincial  cause  was 
vigorously  espoused  by  an  anonymous  pamphleteer  in  a  tract 
entitled  The  Liberty  and  Property  of  British  Subjects  Asserted 
(London,  1726).  The  provincial  revolution  he  justified  on  the 
familiar  ground  of  the  failure  of  the  Proprietors  to  protect  the 
colony  against  the  French,  Spaniards,  and  Indians.  This,  he 
asserted,  constituted  a  forfeiture  of  the  charter.  Quit-rents, 
incidentally,  he  described  as  payments  for  protection  only.  ‘I 
won’t  venture  to  say  how  far  Compact  is  concern’d  in  all  Gov¬ 
ernments,’  he  wrote,  ‘but  certainly  it  is  the  sole  Foundation  of 
such  as  owe  their  Powers  to  Patents  only.’24 

“  C.O.  5:292  (minute  book,  1707-1727).  There  is  a  similar  gap,  Sept., 
1719-April,  1724,  in  the  Proprietors’  book  of  orders  and  instructions,  C.O. 
5  :290. 

20  Ibid.,  pp.  165,  166. 

21  Ibid.,  pp.  167,  170. 

22  Ibid.,  pp.  172,  173;  C.O.  5 :387,  ff.  100,  124;  C.O.  5:383,  no.  28  (11), 
‘The  Case  of  the  Lords  Proprietors’;  ibid.,  (12),  ‘The  Humble  Repre¬ 
sentation  of  Richard  Shelton.’ 

23  JC,  May  10,  17,  18,  1726. 

24  See  pp.  24  f.,  27-31.  On  pp.  22  f.  the  colonial  assembly  was  eloquently 
defended  against  proprietary  aspersions,  as  a  body  ‘which,  however  it  may 


290 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


Balked  in  their  attempt  to  resume  the  government,  the  Pro¬ 
prietors  were  shortly  drawn  into  those  protracted  negotiations 
which  culminated,  in  1729,  in  the  surrender  of  Carolina  to  the 
Crown.  These  parleys  were  initiated  in  1727  by  the  Earl  of 
Westmoreland,  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  who  acted,  avowedly, 
upon  the  Board’s  well-established  policy  towards  charter 
colonies.  At  first,  no  more  than  the  surrender  of  sovereignty 
was  contemplated,  though  Westmoreland  hoped  that  the  Pro¬ 
prietors  might  be  persuaded  to  commute  their  quit-rents  in 
Carolina  for  hereditary  duties  as  ‘a  Meanes  of  its  spedier 
Peopleing.’  But  difficulties  arose  over  procedure,  Carteret  re¬ 
fused  to  join  in  the  petition,  and  the  project  languished.25  In 
March,  1728,  again  through  the  medium  of  Westmoreland, 
six  of  the  Proprietors  renewed  and  extended  their  proposals, 
offering  to  surrender  the  soil  in  return  for  £2500  per  share. 
Carteret  still  held  aloof.26  There  was  a  long  delay,  due,  ap¬ 
parently,  to  the  slowness  of  Parliament  in  passing  the  requisite 
act.  At  this  stage  appeared  among  the  promoters  of  the  sur¬ 
render  the  eccentric  Thomas  Lowndes,  who  later  claimed  more 
credit  in  the  affair  than  Westmoreland  would  allow.  Lowndes 
claimed  to  be  the  author  of  a  memorial  presented  to  the 
Speaker  and  other  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  when 
the  demand  was  made  for  the  purchase  money.  This  paper 
voiced  an  eloquent  appeal  to  the  imperial  interests  involved  in 
the  acquisition  of  Carolina,  and  advocated  the  vigorous  coloni¬ 
zation  of  its  borders.  It  urged  not  merely  a  good  settlement  at 
Port  Royal,  and  its  development  as  a  naval  base,  to  overlook 
the  Gulf  of  Florida,  but  also  the  planting  of  ‘the  most  fertile 
and  healthy  Part  of  all  America,’  ‘the  Tract  of  Land  lying 
between  Port  Royal  in  South  Carolina  and  Florida.’27 

be  regarded  by  you  in  England,  with  us  in  Carolina  is  our  little  Senate ;  and 
every  Scoff  which  you  think  fit  to  throw  upon  this  small  and  inconsiderable 
Assembly  (being  three  thousand  Miles  distant)  is  no  less  to  us  than  so  many 
Threats  of  the  entire  Subversion  of  our  Liberties,  which  we,  as  English¬ 
men,  cannot  in  the  least  relish.’  This  pamphleteer’s  defense  of  the  anti¬ 
proprietary  revolution  is  an  interesting  anticipation  of  certain  features  of 
the  American  case  two  generations  later. 

“CO.  5:290,  pp.  181-4;  292,  p.  158;  387,  ff.  149-51  (Westmoreland’s 
‘Narrative  of  the  affair  of  Carolina,’  addressed  to  Newcastle,  June  17, 
1717)  ;  see  also  ibid.,  ff.  153  f. 

28  C.O.  5:290,  pp.  257f.,  279;  Historical  MSS  Commission,  Eleventh  Re¬ 
port,  part  IV,  pp.  256  f.  (Townshend  Papers). 

27  Ibid.,  pp.  257  f.  C.O.  5:361,  C  48,  C  50;  306,  no.  11.  See  article  on 
Thomas  Lowndes  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  XXXIV.  208-10. 
His  chief  distinction  was  as  founder  of  the  professorship  of  astronomy  in 
Cambridge  University. 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


291 


The  surrender  of  the  Carolina  charter28  was  a  notable  event 
in  the  history  of  the  southern  frontier,  for  it  removed  the  most 
serious  obstacle  to  an  advance  of  settlement  into  a  region  long 
marked  for  English  occupation. 

Even  before  the  title  passed  to  the  Crown  the  Board  of 
Trade  was  bombarded  by  Thomas  Lowndes  with  a  series  of 
proposals  for  the  exploitation  of  South  Carolina.  They  ranged 
from  a  scheme  for  cutting  off  the  Spanish  plate  fleet  and 
another  for  fortifying  Port  Royal  and  the  Bahamas,  to 
projects  for  producing  potash  and  extracting  oil  from  sesamum 
seed.29  The  most  seriously  considered  was  his  enterprise  for 
diverting  Palatine  emigration  from  Pennsylvania  to  Carolina.30 
This  the  Board  approved,  in  principle,  as  ‘strengthening  in  so 
effectual  a  manner  their  Southern  Frontier.’  In  his  letters  and 
memorials  Lowndes  foreshadowed  important  features  of  the 
Georgia  project.  Associated  with  him  was  Thomas  Missing,  of 
Portsmouth,  formerly  a  contractor  for  victualling  the  garrisons 
of  Gibraltar,  Annapolis,  and  Placentia,  who  claimed  experience 
in  transporting  emigrants  to  America,  and  Benjamin  de  la 
Fontaine,  a  shipping  contractor  in  the  Pennsylvania  emigrant 
business.  It  appears  that  Missing  had  agents  in  Holland  recruit¬ 
ing  Carolina  colonists,  and  that  the  Palatines  actually  sent 
commissioners  to  view  the  Port  Royal  region.  The  promoters 
were  anxious  that  the  government  defray  the  charges  of  the 
first  shiploads,  apparently  hoping  to  finance  the  scheme  there¬ 
after  from  the  sale  of  lands.  Negotiations  were  still  in  progress, 
in  1730,  when  the  Palatine  project  was  eclipsed  by  the  revival 
of  Purry’s  scheme  and  the  emergence  of  the  Georgia  enterprise. 
Meanwhile  Lowndes  had  kept  constantly  before  the  Board  of 
Trade  the  importance  of  having  ‘South  Carolina,  the  Frontier 
of  his  Majesties  American  Dominions,  well  settled  by  an  in¬ 
dustrious  Race  of  People,’  and  in  particular,  that  ‘vast  Tract  of 
uncultivated  land  to  the  Southward.’31 

In  November,  1729,  the  Board  of  Trade  was  duly  notified 

28  See  C.  C.  Crittenden,  ‘The  Surrender  of  the  Charter  of  Carolina,’  in 
North  Carolina  Historical  Review,  I.  383-402. 

29  C.O.  S  :361,  C  SO,  C  71,  C  93,  C  94,  C  110. 

30C.O.  5:360,  C  26,  C  27,  C  45,  C  46,  C  47;  361,  C  56,  C  58,  C  72,  C  73, 
C  74,  C  92;  400,  p.  239;  Calendar  of  Treasury  Papers,  1720-1728,  p.  166. 

31  C.O.  5  :360,  C  26 ;  361,  C  73. 


292 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


by  Secretary  Townshend  that  Robert  Johnson,  Esq.,  had  been 
appointed  royal  governor  of  South  Carolina.32  The  son  of  Sir 
Nathaniel  Johnson,  the  new  appointee  had  himself  been  dis¬ 
placed  as  proprietary  governor  by  the  revolution  of  1719.  But 
he  had  retained  the  respect  of  the  colonists  who  had  ousted 
him.  Consequently  his  candidacy  to  succeed  Nicholson  had  been 
opposed  by  the  Proprietors.  In  any  disinterested  view  Johnson 
was  exceptionally  equipped  for  his  post.  The  Board  of  Trade 
took  more  than  usual  account  of  his  suggestions  when  they 
framed  his  instructions.  Upon  this  task  they  were  engaged 
between  December,  1729,  and  June,  1730,  a  period  crowded 
with  significant  developments  in  the  history  of  the  southern 
frontier. 

In  a  long  letter  of  suggestions  to  the  Board,  December  19, 
1729,33  Colonel  Johnson  revealed  his  preoccupation  with  prob¬ 
lems  of  defense  and  settlement  in  South  Carolina.  A  present 
to  the  Cherokee  Indians  in  acknowledgement  of  one  which 
they  had  sent  over  by  the  trader,  John  Savy,  ‘would  very  much 
attach  these  people  to  the  English’ ;  another  independent  com¬ 
pany  was  much  needed  for  the  security  of  the  frontiers;  and 
especially,  he  insisted,  ‘nothing  is  so  much  wanted  in  Carolina 
as  white  Inhabitants.’  The  Crown,  he  advised,  might  well  be 
at  the  charge  of  transporting  two  hundred  families  of  Swiss  or 
other  foreigners,  for  thereby  great  numbers  more  would  be 
attracted  to  Carolina  without  additional  expense.  Johnson  was 
aware,  perhaps,  that  Purry  was  preparing  to  revive  his  pro¬ 
posals  of  royal  aid  to  Swiss  colonization;  these  he  later 
specifically  endorsed.34  In  other  memorials  the  new  governor 
addressed  himself  exhaustively  to  the  crucial  problem  of  en¬ 
couraging  settlement.  Johnson  had  remained  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina  for  a  number  of  years  after  the  revolution  and  must  have 
been  thoroughly  familiar  with  Barnwell’s  township  scheme,  so 
strongly  supported  by  Governor  Nicholson  and  the  assembly. 
This  he  now  revived  and  elaborated,  requesting  particular  in¬ 
structions  upon  this  head.35  In  March  and  April  he  submitted 

32  Ibid.,  C  59.  See  also  C.O.  5  :400,  p.  245. 

33C.O.  5:361,  C  60. 

34  Ibid.,  C  101. 

35  Johnson  to  secretary  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  January  2,  1729/30,  in 
ibid.,  C  62.  Besides  his  township  scheme,  which  developed  into  Georgia, 
Johnson  advocated  sending  a  second  independent  company,  and  additional 
ordnance  (C.O.  5  :383,  nos.  40,  41,  42). 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


293 


three  important  papers:  ‘A  Proposal  for  Improving  and  the 
better  Settling  of  South  Carolina,’  ‘Reasons  against  reserving 
a  Quit  Rent  of  a  Penny  an  Acre,’  and  an  ‘Explanation  of  My 
scheem  given  the  Lords  of  Trade  for  Settling  Townships.’36 
Therein  he  proposed  to  erect  ten  frontier  townships,  comprising 
two  hundred  thousand  acres  of  crown  lands,  on  the  seven  prin¬ 
cipal  rivers  of  the  province — three  on  the  Savannah,  two  on 
the  Santee,  one  at  the  head  of  Pon  Pon  River,  the  others  on 
Wateree,  Black  River,  Pedee  and  Waccamaw.  In  the  middle  of 
each  square  tract  of  twenty  thousand  acres  would  be  placed,  for 
convenience  in  defense,  ‘a  little  town  of  250  Lotts,  not  exceed¬ 
ing  1/4  Part  of  an  Acre  to  each  Lott,  which  Town  and  Com¬ 
mons  is  computed  will  take  up  but  350  Acres.’  The  remainder 
of  the  township  lands  would  be  allotted  to  inhabitants  in  two 
hundred  parcels  of  seventy-five  to  one  hundred  acres  each. 
Since  a  principal  object  was  to  attract  poor  people  to  the  prov¬ 
ince  the  quit-rents  should  not  exceed  2s  6d  per  hundred  acres. 
A  special  inducement  for  foreigners  was  suggested  in  the  grant 
to  them  of  the  franchise  for  the  choice  of  deputies.  The  system, 
he  argued,  would  furnish  such  protection  of  the  frontier  in 
time  of  war  as  was  ‘almost  fatally  wanting  during  the  Yamasee 
revolt.’  ‘Carolina  being  the  Southernmost  of  his  Majestys  Do¬ 
minions  on  the  Continent  of  America,  and  the  most  Exposed 
to  the  Spaniard  att  St.  Augustin,  and  the  French  att  Moville, 
and  Great  Numbers  of  Indians  about  us,  who  are  often  Induced 
by  the  French  and  Spaniard  to  Cutt  off  our  Out-Settlements; 
these  things  well  Considered,  I  am  of  opinion,’  Johnson  de¬ 
clared,  ‘that  Great  Encouragement  should  be  Given  to  new 
Commers  to  settle  in  Townships.’ 

This  scheme,  elaborating  as  it  did  the  earlier  suggestions 
from  South  Carolina,  won  enthusiastic  endorsement.  When  the 
Board  of  Trade  submitted  to  the  Privy  Council  its  draft  of 
instructions  for  Johnson  on  June  10,  1730,  it  incorporated  the 
essentials  of  Johnson’s  plan,  and  the  instructions  as  a  whole 
were  approved  by  the  Privy  Council  in  September.  In  the  fu¬ 
ture,  the  Board  urged  in  its  representation,  all  grants  of  land 
in  the  province  should  be  proportioned  in  amount  to  the  ability 
of  the  grantee  to  cultivate  them.  The  township  scheme  was 
33  C.O.  5  :361,  C  76,  C  78,  C  85. 


294 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


strongly  supported  by  reference  to  the  experience  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts  and  New  Hampshire.  In  a  few  minor  details  the  official 
project  differed  from  that  of  Johnson.  Thus  Johnson  was  di¬ 
rected  that  the  towns  should  be  contiguous  to  the  rivers,  that 
each  inhabitant  should  have  fifty  acres  of  land  for  each  member 
of  his  family,  to  be  augmented  later  in  proportion  to  his  abili¬ 
ties,  and  that  the  land  within  a  distance  of  six  miles  from  the 
townships  should  be  reserved  for  future  grants  to  the  township 
inhabitants.  The  only  significant  alteration,  but  that  one  of 
real  importance,  since  it  represented  a  notable  step  towards  the 
establishment  of  Georgia,  was  in  the  number  and  location  of 
the  new  frontier  settlements.  With  all  convenient  speed  the 
governor  was  instructed  to  set  out  eleven  townships,  seven  of 
these,  as  in  Johnson’s  proposals,  on  rivers  north  of  the  Sa¬ 
vannah,  two  on  the  Savannah  River,  and  also  ‘2  Towtiships 
upon  the  River  Alatamahama Z37 

Thus  by  June,  1730,  the  Board  had  determined  to  project 
colonization  southward  into  the  debatable  border  region  where 
no  permanent  English  settlement  had  yet  been  made.  Was  this 
decision  prompted  by  Johnson,  or  did  it  represent  the  initiative 
of  the  Board?  The  instructions  spoke  of  the  new  townships  as 
located  ‘at  Sixty  Miles  distance  from  Charles  Town,’  whereas 
the  Altamaha  lies  some  one  hundred  and  thirty  miles  away. 
This  item  of  the  settlement  scheme  thus  appears  to  have  been 
a  late  interpolation  in  the  draft.  No  doubt  it  was  closely  linked 
with  the  further  orders,  contained  in  the  same  instructions,  for 
the  rebuilding  and  re-garrisoning  of  the  Altamaha  fort.  The 
Board  had  at  length  reverted  to  the  full  Barnwell  program  of 
1720,  so  far  as  concerned  that  segment  of  the  southern  frontier. 

But  now  other  forces  were  converging  upon  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  British  frontier  policy  to  transform  the  garrison-colo¬ 
nies  of  the  revived  Barnwell  scheme  into  a  full-fledged  barrier 
province.  The  elaboration  of  Johnson’s  instructions  had  occu¬ 
pied  the  Board  during  a  period  of  singular  moment  for 
southern  history.  Public  interest  in  South  Carolina  and  its 
hinterland  was  stimulated  by  the  arrival  in  England,  early  in 

37  C.O.  5  :400,  pp.  283-376,  especially  pp.  290,  324-8,  357  f.,  364.  These  in¬ 
structions  were  approved  by  the  Privy  Council,  September  17,  1730.  C.O. 
5:362,  D  1.  The  same  day  the  council  referred  to  the  Board  of  Trade  the 
petition  for  the  charter  of  Georgia. 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


295 


June,  of  Sir  Alexander  Cuming  and  the  seven  Cherokee  In¬ 
dians.  Already,  the  investigations  of  the  prisons  by  the  gaols 
committees  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  1729  and  1730,  under 
the  chairmanship  of  Oglethorpe,  had  raised  in  his  mind,  and  in 
the  minds  of  a  group  of  philanthropists  in  Parliament  and  out¬ 
side,  the  grave  social  problems  of  the  English  unemployed. 
From  several  sources  had  come  the  suggestion  of  colonization 
as  the  remedy.  While  this  charitable  movement  was  evolving 
an  organization  to  establish  debtor  colonies  somewhere  in 
America,  its  leaders  were  in  contact,  in  Parliament  and  especi¬ 
ally  in  the  gaols  committee,  with  active  members  of  the  Board 
of  Trade,  now  thoroughly  awakened  to  the  needs  of  strength¬ 
ening  the  southern  frontier. 

With  the  arrival  of  Sir  Alexander  Cuming  and  the  Indians 
whom  he  brought  back  from  his  self-appointed  mission  to  the 
Cherokee  country,38  there  was  displayed  in  England  such  a 
pageant  of  the  American  wilderness  as  had  not  been  seen  since 
1710,  when  the  visit  of  the  four  ‘Indian  Kings’  of  the  Iroquois 
had  piqued  the  curiosity  of  Addison  and  Steele,  and  set  the 
ballad-mongerers  scribbling.39  The  Cherokee,  though  they  cre¬ 
ated  no  such  literary  furore,  enjoyed  a  remarkable  popular  and 
journalistic  vogue.  Two  results  their  visit  had,  certainly.  It 
projected  Carolina  and  its  frontiers  into  the  forefront  of  public 
attention  when,  for  the  first  time  in  two  generations,  a  prac¬ 
tical  scheme  of  English  colonization  on  the  mainland  was  afoot. 
And  it  afforded  the  Board  of  Trade  an  opportunity  for  a  rare 
stroke  of  frontier  policy,  in  negotiating  at  Westminster  a  treaty 
with  the  Cherokee  under  conditions  which  for  years  to  come 
exalted  English  prestige,  an  essential  ingredient  in  Indian  al¬ 
liances,  among  a  tribe  whose  friendship  was  indispensable  to 
buttress  the  English  colonies  in  the  south. 

From  Deptfort  the  Indians  were  promptly  conveyed  to 
Windsor,  to  attend  the  King  and  the  Court.  Not  only  were  they 
presented  to  his  Majesty,  but  they  also  attended  in  St.  George’s 
Chapel  at  the  installation  of  Prince  William  and  Lord  Chester- 

38  They  landed  at  Deptford  on  June  5,  1730;  London  Daily  Journal,  June 
12,  1730. ' 

30  See  W.  T.  Morgan,  ‘The  Five  Nations  and  Queen  Anne,’  in  MVHR, 
XIII.  178-82;  Tatler,  no.  171  (May  13,  1710)  ;  Spectator,  no.  50  (April  27, 
1711)  ;  The  Four  Indian  Kings,  broadside,  circa  1710  (JCB). 


296 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


field  in  the  Order  of  the  Garter.  They  ‘stood  near  the  King 
when  at  Dinner,’  said  a  London  newspaper,  ‘being  dressed  in 
their  Country  Habits,  having  in  their  Hands,  one  a  Bow, 
another  a  Musqueton,  etc.’  Throughout  these  scenes,  it  was 
observed  that  ‘the  Pomp  and  Splendour  of  the  Court,  and  the 
Grandeur,  not  only  of  the  Ceremony  as  well  of  the  Place  .  .  . 
Struck  them  with  infinite  Surprize  and  Wonder.  .  .  .’  At 
Windsor,  they  were  lodged  at  the  Mermaid  Tavern,  and  there 
they  became  objects  of  great  popular  curiosity,  ‘daily  visited 
by  a  great  many  people,  who  resort  from  all  parts  adjacent.’40 
Early  in  August  they  were  brought  to  see  the  sights  of  the 
town,  and  themselves  to  furnish  a  new  London  sensation. 
Lodgings  were  provided  for  them  in  King  Street,  Covent 
Garden,  in  the  house  of  the  upholsterer,  Mr.  Arne,  celebrated 
by  Steele  and  Addison,  who  had  been  host  twenty  years  before 
to  the  Iroquois  chiefs.41  Under  royal  sign  manual  the  Lords 
of  the  Treasury  paid  out  £400  for  their  maintenance  in  Eng¬ 
land  and  the  expenses  of  their  return  to  America.42  Scarcely  a 
day  passed  during  their  stay  but  the  journals  gave  space  to  news 
of  their  excursions.  They  were  carried  ‘to  all  places  of  Note 
and  Curiosity’ :  to  the  Tower,  of  course,  but  also  to  Sadler’s 
Wells,  and  Tottenham  Court  Fair,  and  to  Christ  Church  Hos¬ 
pital  to  see  the  Blue  Coat  Boys  at  supper,  and  to  the  Artillery 
Ground  ‘to  see  the  Performance  of  the  White  Regiment  of 
Trained  Bands.’  ‘Attended  by  a  great  number  of  the  populace,’ 
they  visited  Bedlam  where  the  lunatics  chained  to  the  walls 
furnished  a  characteristic  eighteenth-century  spectacle.43 

Numerous  dinners44  were  given  them  in  the  taverns  of  the 
town.  On  two  occasions  they  were  feasted  by  the  merchants 

w  Daily  Journal,  June  20,  August  1,  1730;  Isaac  Basire,  engraving  of  the 
seven  Cherokee,  with  inscription,  circa  1730;  London  Daily  Courant,  August 
1,  1730.  The  latter  newspaper  denied  the  report  of  a  brawl  among  the 
Cherokee  at  the  Mermaid,  but  the  landlord  wrote  to  Cuming,  July  15,  de¬ 
manding  the  removal  of  his  quarrelsome  guests  (C.O.  5:4,  no.  47). 

41  Daily  Journal,  August  3,  1730;  Austin  Dobson,  Eighteenth  Century 
Vignettes,  third  series,  p.  328. 

42  Calendar  of  Treasury  Books  and  Papers,  1729-1730,  p.  590.  See  also 
ibid.,  pp.  411,  414,  430. 

43  Daily  Journal,  August  13,  14,  16,  1730;  Daily  Courant,  August  12,  18, 
26,  1730. 

44  Ibid.,  August  14,  21,  1730;  Daily  Journal,  September  4,  23,  1730; 
London  Daily  Post,  August  3,  20,  28,  1730;  Henry  B.  Wheatley,  Hogarth’s 
London,  1909,  p.  274  (Pontack’s). 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


297 


trading  to  Carolina :  at  the  Carolina  Coffee  House,  and  at  the 
famous  Pontack’s  eating-house,  resort  of  epicures.  At  another 
dinner,  appropriately,  the  Society  of  Archers  were  their  hosts. 
Robert  Hucks  was  one  of  the  philanthropists  who  were  engaged 
during  that  summer  in  planning  the  establishment  of  the  debtor 
colony  in  Georgia.  Recognising,  no  doubt,  the  value  to  the  in¬ 
tended  colony  of  the  amity  of  the  Cherokee,  he  ‘treated  the 
seven  Indians  with  a  splendid  supper  at  his  House  in  Great 
Russell  Street,  Bloomsbury. ’A  ball  at  the  Long  Room  at  Rich¬ 
mond- Wells  was  contrived  for  their  pleasure;  and  they  were 
taken  to  a  variety  of  theatrical  performances.  To  advertise  the 
presence  of  the  Cherokee  ‘kings’  at  the  theatre  was  apparently 
a  stock  device  of  the  managers  to  attract  an  audience,  so  much 
so  that  it  was  satirized  in  the  journals.45  While  in  London 
their  pictures  were  painted  for  the  Duke  of  Montagu.  A  con¬ 
temporary  print  showed  them  garbed  in  uniforms  presented  to 
them  by  George  II.46  Everywhere  they  were  objects  of  curious 
interest.  When  they  ‘took  the  Air  in  St.  James  Park,  habited 
in  rich  Garments  laced  with  gold,  presented  to  them  by  his 
Majesty,  .  .  .  accompanied  by  several  Persons  of  Quality  and 
Distinction’  they  were  followed  by  crowds  of  spectators.  ‘Their 
Levees  are  very  great  every  Day,’  continued  the  writer  in 
the  Daily  Courant,  ‘Persons  of  all  Ranks  and  Distinction  being 
admitted  to  see  them  that  behave  with  Decency  and  good  Man¬ 
ners.’47  The  decorum  of  the  Indians  themselves  was  greatly 
admired.  One  observer,  perhaps  under  the  spell  of  the  ‘noble 
savage’  tradition,  declared  that  ‘they  were  remarkably  Strict 
in  their  Probity  and  Morality;  their  Behaviour  easy  and 
courteous.’48 

Some  part  of  the  publicity  which  attended  the  Cherokee 
visits  should,  perhaps,  be  attributed  to  press-agent  activities  of 
their  eccentric  but  enterprising  patron,  Sir  Alexander  Cuming. 
Cuming  apparently  had  ready  access  to  the  London  journals, 
but  he  found  the  colonial  authorities  less  susceptible  to  his  sug- 

40  Daily  Journal,  October  1,  2,  1730;  Daily  Post,  August  18,  19,  21,  1730. 

48  Daily  Journal,  August  6,  7,  1730.  See  frontispiece,  for  Isaac  Basire’s 
print  (copies  in  British  Museum  and  in  University  of  South  Carolina  Li¬ 
brary),  engraved  from  a  painting  by  Markham.  On  Basire  and  his  family  of 
engravers  see  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  III.  358-60. 

47  Daily  Courant,  August  7,  1730. 

48  Descriptive  text  on  Basire  print. 


298 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


gestions.  Besides  pressing  his  pet  project  for  a  bank  in  South 
Carolina  to  check  the  evils  of  colonial  paper  issues,49  he  me¬ 
morialized  Newcastle  for  recognition  by  the  Crown  of  his  over¬ 
lordship,  which  he  claimed  by  virtue  of  the  action  of  the  Indian 
council  at  Nequasse.50  The  powers  which  the  council  had  con¬ 
ferred  at  his  bidding  upon  Moytoy  were  subject  to  their  obedi¬ 
ence  to  him,  and  he  alone  was  directly  answerable  for  them  to 
the  King.  Now  in  England  he  sought  to  have  his  powers  con¬ 
firmed  by  the  Crown  for  a  period  of  three  years,  during  which 
he  promised  to  live  among  the  Indians  and  to  promote  the  royal 
service  in  such  manner  as  to  render  it  easy  for  his  successor  in 
the  proposed  vice-royalty  of  the  Cherokee. 

The  Board  of  Trade  sought  to  ignore  Cuming’s  extraor¬ 
dinary  pretensions,  but  they  saw  in  the  unexpected  incident  of 
the  Indian  visit  an  opportunity  to  put  the  Cherokee  upon  the 
same  footing  in  the  South  as  that  long  occupied  in  the  North 
by  the  Iroquois,  through  their  alliance  and  their  recognition  of 
English  sovereignty.  Following  an  interview  with  Robert  John¬ 
son,  who  may,  indeed,  have  suggested  the  exploit,  the  Board 
proposed  to  Newcastle,  August  20,  1730,  that  a  treaty  be  en¬ 
tered  upon  with  this  ‘so  solemn  an  Ambassy.’  Not  only  would 
such  a  treaty  cement  British  friendship  with  a  numerous  and 
warlike  people,  but  also,  it  was  urged,  the  ‘Agreement  remain¬ 
ing  upon  Record  in  our  Office  would  upon  future  Disputes,  with 
any  European  Nation,  greatly  strengthen  our  Title  in  those 
parts  even  to  all  the  Lands  which  those  People  now  possess.’51 

Already,  indeed,  the  Board  had  secured  from  Sir  William 
Keith,  former  deputy-governor  of  Pennsylvania,  a  form  of 
the  proposed  agreement.  The  departure  of  Johnson  and  the 
Indians  was  postponed,  and  preparations  were  made  for  the 
most  picturesque  incident  in  the  long  and  useful,  but  usually 
humdrum  existence  of  the  Board  of  Trade  and  Plantations. 
From  Johnson  and  Keith  and  from  the  interpreter,  Bun- 
ning,  the  Lords  of  Trade  sought  information  of  the  proper 
manner  of  negotiating  with  savages,  and  to  good  purpose,  for 
the  treaty  was  accomplished  in  the  best  tradition  of  the  Ameri- 

49  C.O.  5 :361,  C  99 ;  Daily  Journal,  August  4,  October  3,  1730. 

“C.O.  4,  no.  48;  5:361,  C  102. 

61 JBT,  August  18,  19,  20,  1730;  C.O.  5:400,  pp.  384-6. 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


299 


can  wilderness,  with  such  added  parade  of  Britannic  splendor 
as  was  calculated  to  impress  the  Indians.  To  this  end  the  secre¬ 
tary  applied  to  the  War  Office  for  a  detail  of  two  sergeants  and 
twelve  grenadiers  to  attend  at  the  parleys  in  the  Plantation 
Office  in  Whitehall.52 

On  September  7,  in  the  presence  of  three  members  of  the 
Board,  and  of  Colonel  Johnson,  Sir  William  Keith  and  several 
other  gentlemen,  the  treaty53  was  read,  and  samples  of  the 
intended  presents  displayed.  A  preamble  recited  the  occasion  of 
the  treaty  and  the  desire  of  the  King  that  the  ‘chain  of  friend¬ 
ship’  now  established  should  never  more  be  broken  or  made 
loose.  Trade  was,  of  course,  the  solid  basis  of  all  Indian  alli¬ 
ances  ;  and  so  the  King  had  ‘ordered  his  People  ...  in  Caro¬ 
lina  to  Trade  with  the  Indians,  and  to  furnish  them  with  all 
manner  of  Goods  that  they  want.’  There  followed  a  curious 
reference  to  the  policy  of  western  expansion  which  was  hardly 
calculated,  one  might  think,  to  strengthen  the  league.  The  King 
had  also  ordered  the  Carolinians  to  ‘make  hast  to  build  Houses, 
and  to  plant  Corn  from  Charles  Town  towards  the  Town  of 
the  Cherrokees,  behind  the  Great  Mountains ;  for  he  desires  that 
the  Indians  and  English  may  live  together  as  the  Children  of 
one  Family.’  Then  came  the  crucial  assertion  of  English  sov¬ 
ereignty:  ‘As  the  King  has  given  his  Land  on  both  Sides  of 
the  Great  Mountains  to  his  own  Children  the  English,  so  he  now 
gives  to  the  Cherokee  Indians  the  priviledge  of  living  where 
they  please.’  To  balance  these  somewhat  questionable  ‘favors,’ 
several  very  real  services  were  required  of  the  Indians  as  con¬ 
sequences  of  the  alliance.  As  ‘Children  of  the  Great  King’  and 
brethren  of  the  English  they  ‘must  be  always  ready  at  the 
Governor’s  Command,  to  fight  against  any  Nation,  whether 
they  be  White  Men  or  Indians,  who  shall  dare  to  Molest  them, 
or  hurt  the  English.’  The  trading  path  must  be  kept  clean;  this 
guarantee  extended  to  the  English  trade  with  tribes  at  war  with 
the  Cherokee.  Further,  the  Cherokee  were  pledged  not  to  ‘suffer 
their  People  to  trade  with  the  White  Men  of  any  other  Nation 
but  the  English,’  nor  permit  them  ‘to  build  any  Forts,  Cabins 

62C.O.  5:361,  C  109,  111;  JBT,  August  19,  20,  25,  September  1,  1730; 
Daily  Journal,  September  7,  1730. 

63  JBT,  September  7,  1730;  C.O.  4,  no.  46,  i;  5:400,  pp.  388-94.  Text  of 
treaty  is  also  in  Daily  Journal,  October  7,  1730. 


300 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


or  Plant  Corn  amongst  them,  ...  or  upon  the  Lands  which 
belong  to  the  Great  King.’  The  Indians  were  bound  to  return 
fugitive  negro  slaves,  for  a  reward  specified,  and  English  jus¬ 
tice  was  prescribed  for  Indian  murderers  of  whites,  and  white 
murderers  of  Indians. 

The  scene  was  repeated  on  September  9,  when  the  Indian 
reply  was  made.54  The  speech  of  the  Ketagustah  had  the  au¬ 
thentic  ring  of  aboriginal  eloquence  : 

We  are  come  hither  from  a  dark  Mountainous  Place,  where  noth¬ 
ing  but  Darkness  is  to  be  found;  but  [we]  are  now  in  a  place 
where  there  is  light. 

There  was  a  Person  in  our  Country  with  us,  he  gave  us  a 
Yellow  token  of  Warlike  Honour,  that  is  left  with  Moytoy  of 
Telliko,  and  as  Warriours  we  received  it;  he  came  to  us  like  a 
Warriour  from  you;  a  Man  he  was,  his  talk  was  upright,  and  the 
token  he  left  preserves  his  Memory  amongst  us. 

We  look  upon  you  as  if  the  Great  King  George  was  present: 
and  We  love  you,  as  representing  the  Great  King,  and  shall  Dye 
in  the  same  Way  of  Thinking. 

The  Crown  of  our  Nation  is  different  from  that  which  the 
Great  King  George  wears,  and  from  that  which  we  saw  in  the 
Tower,  but  to  us  it  is  all  one,  and  the  Chain  of  Friendship  shall  be 
carried  to  our  People. 

We  look  upon  the  Great  King  George  as  the  Sun,  and  as  our 
Father,  and  upon  ourselves  as  his  Children ;  for  tho’  we  are  Red, 
and  you  are  white,  yet  our  Hands  and  Hearts  are  join’d  together. 

When  we  shall  have  acqainted  our  People  with  what  we  have 
seen,  our  Children  from  Generation  to  Generation  will  always 
remember  it. 

In  War  we  shall  always  be  as  one  with  you,  the  Great  King 
George’s  Enemies  shall  be  our  Enemies,  his  People  and  ours  shall 
be  always  one,  and  [shall]  dye  together. 

We  came  hither  naked  and  poor,  as  the  Worm  of  the  Earth, 
but  you  have  everything :  and  we  that  have  nothing  must  love  you, 
and  can  never  break  the  Chain  of  Friendship  which  is  between  us. 

Here  stands  the  Governor  of  Carolina,  whom  we  know ;  this 
small  Rope  which  we  shew  you,  is  all  we  have  to  bind  our  slaves 
with,  and  may  be  broken,  but  you  have  Iron  Chains  for  yours; 
however,  if  we  catch  your  Slaves,  we  shall  bind  them  as  well  as 
we  can,  and  deliver  them  to  our  Friends  again,  and  have  no  pay 
for  it. 

We  have  looked  round  for  the  Person  that  was  in  our  Country, 
he  is  not  here,  however,  we  must  say,  that  he  talked  uprightly  to 
us,  and  we  shall  never  forget  him. 

M  Ibid.,  October  7,  1730;  C.O.  5:4,  no.  46  ii ;  JBT,  September  8,  9,  1730. 


SOUTHERN  COLONIZATION 


301 


Your  White  People  may  very  safely  build  Houses  near  us, 
we  shall  hurt  nothing  that  belongs  to  them,  for  we  are  the  Children 
of  one  Father,  the  Great  King,  and  shall  live  and  Dye  together. 

Then  laying  the  feathers  upon  the  table,  he  added, 

This  is  our  Way  of  Talking,  which  is  the  same  thing  to  us,  as 
your  letters  in  the  Book  are  to  you ;  and  to  you,  beloved  Men,  we 
deliver  these  Feathers,  in  Confirmation  of  all  that  we  have  said. 

The  Cherokee  reply  had  pointedly  objected  to  the  exclusion 
of  Cuming  from  the  negotiations,  and  had  omitted  all  mention 
of  three  articles  of  the  pact.  In  a  memorial55  submitted  to  the 
Board  on  September  15,  Cuming  asserted  that  these  omissions 
were  intentional  and  the  result  of  his  absence,  but  the  Indians 
had  requested  him  to  convey  their  answer  on  these  points.  They 
had  come  to  England  not  to  enter  into  any  agreement  for  them¬ 
selves,  but  solely  as  his  friends,  to  give  evidence  that  they  had 
submitted  themselves  to  the  King  at  the  memorialist’s  command. 
Thus  Cuming  demanded  that  the  negotiation  pass  through  his 
hands.  Although  the  printed  text  of  the  treaty  indicated  that  it 
was  signed  for  the  Board  by  the  secretary,  Popple,  on  Septem¬ 
ber  9,  and  bore  the  initials  of  the  Indians,  there  is  some  doubt 
as  to  when  they  gave  their  full  consent.  In  an  account  printed 
in  the  Daily  Journal,  on  information  probably  derived  from 
Cuming  himself,  it  was  asserted  that  on  September  29  Cuming 
gave  the  Board  his  approbation  on  behalf  of  the  Cherokee  In¬ 
dians,  and  that  in  the  evening  ‘the  said  Articles  were  signed  by 
the  Chiefs,  at  Sir  Alexander’s  Lodgings  in  Spring  Garden, 
Westminster,  in  the  Presence  of  the  Governor  of  Carolina,  and 
the  Secretary  of  that  Board,’  when  the  Indians  ‘in  Token  of 
their  Satisfaction,  sung  and  danced  after  a  Warlike  Manner,  in 
their  Way,  all  the  evening.’56  It  is  a  fact  that  it  was  not  until 
September  30,  the  day  following  this  alleged  triumph  of  Cum¬ 
ing’s  intervention,  that  the  Board  informed  Newcastle  that  the 
Cherokee  had  given  their  full  consent  to  the  treaty. 

Whatever  concessions  may  have  been  made  perforce  to  the 
vanity  of  Cuming,  the  Board  was  well  pleased  with  the  affair, 
and  expected  from  it  important  imperial  consequences.  To  New¬ 
castle  they  emphasized  ‘that  there  is  a  full  Acknowledgement  in 

“C.O.  5:361,  C  112;  4,  no.  46,  ii. 

M  Daily  Journal,  October  1,  1730. 


302 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


this  Agreement  of  their  Subjection  to  His  Majesty.’37  To  the 
public  the  mystery  ‘of  bringing  over  a  Set  of  Savages  here, 
whom  they  call  Chiefs,  and  some  will  have  them  be  called 
Kings,  .  .  .  and  making  a  formal  Treaty  of  Peace  with  them’ 
was  explained  by  a  writer  in  the  Political  State  of  Great  Britain 
of  October,  1730,  who  stressed  the  importance  of  the  Cherokee 
alliance  in  the  Indian  warfare  of  America,  and  in  the  event  of 
future  war  with  France.58 

The  treaty  had  more  than  the  usual  success  of  Indian  alli¬ 
ances.  Moreover,  the  colorful  circumstances  which  had  sur¬ 
rounded  its  negotiation  had  helped  to  place  Carolina,  that  year, 
in  the  centre  of  the  imperial  stage.  No  other  mainland  colony 
was  so  much  the  topic  of  discussion  at  home.  And  an  impression 
was  abroad  that  this  border  province,  after  all  its  vicissitudes, 
was  about  to  achieve  safety  and  prosperity.59 

57  C.O.  5  :401,  pp.  2  f. 

58  Political  State  of  Great  Britain,  XL.  380-7.  The  Indians  sailed  with 
Johnson  early  in  October,  and  reached  South  Carolina  by  the  middle  of  the 
next  month.  JC,  December  18,  1730.  A  curious  aftermath  of  the  visit  was 
a  memorial  to  the  Board  of  Trade  in  1731  from  one  John  Slater,  of  Cow 
Cross,  West  Smithfield,  suggesting  the  employment  of  the  Cherokee  in  silk 
culture.  Ever  since  the  visit  of  the  ‘chiefs,’  he  said,  he  had  thought  that  the 
Indians  might  be  brought  to  work  at  some  useful  manufacture  (C.O.  323:9, 
M  28). 

69  Political  State  of  Great  Britain,  XXXIX.  341,  345,  582  f. ;  Joshua  Gee, 
Trade  and  Navigation,  1729,  pp.  23,  60  f.,  et  passim;  [F.  Hall],  The  Im¬ 
portance  of  the  British  Plantations  in  America,  1731,  p.  62. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


The  Philanthropists  and  the  Genesis 
of  Georgia 

By  1730  a  forward  movement  of  settlement  upon  the  south¬ 
ern  frontier  was  clearly  impending.  English  occupation  of  the 
Savannah-Altamaha  region,  so  long  advocated  from  South 
Carolina,  had  been  proclaimed  in  instructions  to  Governor  John¬ 
son.  But  this  decision  of  the  colonial  authorities,  though  im¬ 
portant,  was  not  of  itself  sufficient  to  supply  the  needed  colonists 
or  to  win  national  support. 

The  failure  of  all  earlier  projects  for  southern  colonization 
since  1670  had  been  due,  in  part,  to  specific  weaknesses:  they 
were  visionary  Edens,  or  mere  speculators’  ‘bubbles,’  or  they 
were  cast  in  the  discredited  mold  of  proprietary  provinces.  But 
in  addition  there  had  hitherto  lacked  any  such  effective  impulse 
towards  transplanting  colonists  as  the  religious  and  political 
controversies  of  an  earlier  time  had  furnished.  Now,  at  last, 
such  an  impulse  was  provided  by  the  organized  forces  of  piety 
and  philanthropy  so  characteristic  of  this  epoch.  To  the  ‘im¬ 
perialism’  of  the  Carolinians  and  the  Board  of  Trade,  anti- 
Spanish,  but  even  more  aggressively  anti-French,  there  were 
added  the  strong  currents  of  English  social  reform  and  of 
that  ‘ecclesiastical  imperialism’  of  which  Dr.  Thomas  Bray  had 
been  for  many  years  the  indefatigable  leader.1  Strategy  dic¬ 
tated  that  the  next  English  seaboard  colony  should  be  planted 
on  the  exposed  southern  border.  But  it  was  the  force  of  English 
piety  and  practical  benevolence  that  furnished  colonists  from 
the  unemployed  of  England  and  from  the  foreign  Protestants, 
and  prescribed  the  social  character  and  even  the  organization 
of  the  new  march  colony,  with  its  otherwise  inexplicable  rever¬ 
sion  to  the  out-moded  proprietorship.  Institutionally,  as  well  as 
in  its  spirit  of  charity,  Georgia  was  the  product  of  the  reli¬ 
gious-philanthropic  movements  of  the  early  eighteenth  century. 

One  of  the  main  channels  through  which  the  rising  tide  of 
English  humanitarianism  was  flowing  consisted  of  the  numer- 

1  E.  B.  Greene,  ‘The  Anglican  Outlook  on  the  American  Colonies,’  AHR, 
XX.  65. 

[  303  ] 


304 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


ous  religious  or  quasi-religious  societies  which  came  into  exist¬ 
ence  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  centuries.  These  were  formed  for  a  variety  of  pur¬ 
poses,  from  the  reformation  of  manners  to  the  founding  of 
charity  schools.2  If  certain  of  their  activities  represented  merely 
the  resurgence  of  the  old  negative  Puritan  morality,  others  gave 
evidence  of  a  more  humane  temper  and  a  new  social  earnestness 
in  England.  To  a  remarkable  degree  the  movement  drew  its 
inspiration  from  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England  famous 
neither  for  learning  nor  for  high  preferment,  the  Reverend  Dr. 
Thomas  Bray,  rector  of  St.  Botolph  Without,  Aldgate.  A  con¬ 
temporary  eulogist  declared :  ‘His  Memory  shou’d  be  ever 
reverenced  in  the  Religious  Societies  of  this  Place  of  whatever 
Denomination,  of  which  he  was  either  a  Founder  or  principal 
Improver.’3  After  particular  mention  of  his  labors  as  a  founder 
of  the  societies  for  the  reformation  of  manners,  for  setting  up 
charity  schools,  and  for  the  relief  of  poor  proselytes,  his  official 
biographer  went  on  to  assert  that  ‘most  of  the  Religious  Socie¬ 
ties  in  London  owe  .  .  .  grateful  acknowledgements  to  his 
memory  and  are  in  great  measure  formed  on  the  plans  he  pro¬ 
jected.’4  The  chief  monuments  to  the  zeal  and  organizing  genius 
of  Dr.  Bray  were,  of  course,  the  two  great  propagandist  bodies 
(in  the  Anglican  Church,  the  Society  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge,  and  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  Foreign  Parts.  Another  smaller  church  society,  also  created 
by  Bray,  became,  shortly  after  his  death  in  1730,  the  parent 
organization  of  the  Georgia  Trust.5 

Though  Bray’s  colonial  interests  antedated  his  brief  visit  to 
America  in  1700,  they  were  no  doubt  greatly  stimulated  by  his 
service  in  Maryland  as  commissary  of  the  Bishop  of  London. 

2  B.  K.  Gray,  A  History  of  English  Philanthropy,  1905,  especially  chap¬ 
ters  iv-ix;  G.  V.  Portus,  Caritas  Anglicana,  1912;  J.  H.  Overton,  Life  in  the 
English  Church,  1660-1714,  1885,  chapter  v,  et  passim;  C.  F.  Pascoe,  Two 
Hundred  Years  of  the  S.P.G.,  1901. 

3  John  Burton,  Sermon  preach’d  before  the  Trustees  .  .  .  March  15, 
1732,  London,  1733,  p.  31. 

*  [Samuel  Smith],  ‘A  Short  Historical  Account,’  Maryland  Historical 
Society,  Fund  Publication,  no.  37  (1901),  pp.  11-50,  especially  p.  4S70n  the 
autKorship  of  this  memoir,  and  of  Publick  Spirit,  illustrated  in  the  Life 
and  Designs  of  Thomas  Bray,  London,  1746,  see  mv  short  article  in  A  HR, 
XXVII.  63  note  3. 

6 1  have  discussed  this  subject  briefly  in  ‘The  Philanthropists  and  the 
Genesis  of  Georgia,’  AHR,  XXVII.  63-9. 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  305 


Two  benevolences  which  he  cherished  to  the  end  of  his  days 
were  designed,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  ameliorate  colonial 
society.  One  was  the  establishment  of  libraries  for  the  parish 
clergy  at  home  and  abroad,  the  other  the  conversion  and  Chris- 
tian  education  of  negro  slaves.  For  the  founding  of  parochial 
libraries  Bray  won  the  patronage  of  several  ‘worthy  and  noble 
personages,’  the  Earl  of  Thanet,  Lord  Viscount  Weymouth, 
Lord  Digby,  and  Robert  Nelson.6  Nelson  may  well  be  taken  as 
the  type  of  the  reformers  of  the  Bray  school.  A  supporter  of 
Anthony  Horneck’s  Societies  for  the  Reformation  of  Manners, 
he  was  also  a  member  of  the  S.P.C.K.,  and  an  active  promoter 
of  charity  schools.7  Nelson  and  Bray,  with  several  of  their 
friends,  were  constituted  Trustees  of  the  Parochial  Libraries 
under  an  act  of  Parliament  of  1709.  From  the  religious  societies 
and  other  sources  they  received  contributions  which  they  em¬ 
ployed  to  lift  the  reproach  against  the  Church  of  an  ignorant 
clergy.  Between  1710  and  1723  they  had  distributed  from  their 
Repository  in  Holborn  some  sixty-two  libraries.  Two  were  es¬ 
tablished  thus  early  in  the  colonies,  in  Montserrat  and  at  Mani¬ 
kin  Town  in  Virginia.  In  1716  they  also  presented  ‘a  packet  of 
Books  ...  to  the  Honble.  Col.  Shute  Governor  of  New  Eng¬ 
land.’  Another  link  with  a  variety  of  pious  and  colonial  interests 
was  in  the  person  of  their  secretary,  Henry  Newman,  who  was 
secretary  also  of  the  S.P.C.K.,  and  active  in  movements  for  the 
relief  of  poor  proselytes  and  the  establishment  of  charity  schools. 
In  1720  he  was  appointed  agent  for  New  Hampshire.  It  was  to 
Newman  that  Thomas  Coram  later  appealed  to  revise  his  ac¬ 
count  for  the  newspapers  of  the  sailing  of  the  first  Georgia 
settlers ;  he  may  have  had  a  further  hand  in  the  great  campaign 
of  publicity  which  heralded  the  creation  of  the  new  colony.8 

For  his  other  work,  among  negroes,  Bray  had  received  a 

6  An  Account  of  the  Designs  of  the  Associates  of  the  late  Dr.  Bray, 
1762,  p.  15. 

1  C.  F.  Secretan,  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Times  of  the  pious  Robert 
Nelson  (1860)  ;  Leslie  Stephen,  ‘Robert  Nelson,’  in  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  XL.  211. 

8  Rawlinson  MSS  D  834  is  a  volume  of  papers  relating  to  the  parochial 
library  trust  (see  especially  folios  2,  7,  9,  15,  19,  38f.,  41,  46,  52,  56,  59). 
Rawlinson  MSS  D  839  contains  papers  of  Henry  Newman  bearing  upon 
his  pious  and  charitable  activities  (see  especially  folios  23,  24,  29,  42,  64,  67, 
76,  98,  130).  On  Bray  and  the  colonial  libraries  see  B.  C.  Steiner  in  AHR 
II.  59-75. 


306 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


bequest  of  £900  from  M.  Abel  Tassin  D’Allone,  of  the  Hague, 
one  of  the  secretaries  of  William  III,  whom  he  had  interested 
in  the  cause  during  a  visit  to  Holland  in  1697.9  For  this  charity 
another  trust  was  eventually  formed.  In  1723  Dr.  Bray  fell 
seriously  ill.  Lord  Palmerston,  the  custodian  of  the  D’Allone 
legacy,  suggested  to  him  that  it  was  now  ‘requisite  he  should 
nominate  and  appoint,  by  Deed,  such  as  he  should  desire  to  have 
Associates  with  him  in  the  Disposition  of  the  Legacy.’  Such,  by 
an  authoritative  account,10  was  the  origin  of  the  little  charitable 
group  known  as  the  Associates  of  Dr.  Bray,  which,  founded  in 
1723  or  1724,  still  exists  as  a  Church  society  under  the  wing 
of  the  S.P.G.11  The  original  Associates  were  but  four  in  num¬ 
ber  besides  Bray,  the  Reverend  Stephen  Hales,  D.D.,  F.R.S., 
the  distinguished  plant-physiologist,  his  brother  Robert  Hales, 
William  Belitha,  and  John  Lord  Viscount  Percival,  afterwards 
first  Earl  of  Egmont.12  Percival  was  an  Irish  peer,  often  at 
court.  In  the  House  of  Commons  he  was  a  moderate  supporter 
of  Walpole,  in  private  life,  a  patron  of  music,  pious  and  chari¬ 
table,  and  a  diligent  diarist.13  Percival,  Belitha,  and  Dr. 
Stephen  Hales  became  charter  trustees  of  Georgia.  In  that  enter¬ 
prise,  indeed,  Percival  was  for  several  years  the  chief  collabor¬ 
ator  of  Oglethorpe. 

Until  1730  the  Associates  seem  not  to  have  been  active,  nor, 
indeed,  in  agreement  as  to  the  best  use  of  the  D’Allone  fund. 
Percival  later  declared  frankly  that  he  had  accepted  his  trustee¬ 
ship  ‘in  order  to  assist  Dean  Berkeley’s  Bermuda  scheme,  by 
erecting  a  Fellowship  in  his  college  for  instructing  negroes ; 
that  in  so  doing  the  charity  would  be  rendered  perpetual, 
whereas  to  dribble  it  away  in  sums  of  five  or  ten  pounds  to  mis- 
sioners  in  the  plantations,  the  money  would  be  lost  without  any 
effect.’14  His  attempt  to  merge  the  D’Allone  charity  with  Berke- 

"  Thomas  Bray,  Missionalia  (1727),  p.  3.  [Samuel  Smith],  Publick  Spirit, 
1746,  p.  43. 

10  Ibid.,  pp.  43-6. 

11  Report  for  the  Year  1920  of  the  Association  Established  by  the  late 
Rev.  Dr.  Bray  and  his  Associates,  1921. 

12  [Samuel  Smith],  ‘A  Short  Historical  Account,’  loc.  cit.,  p.  41 ;  Dic¬ 
tionary  of  National  Biography,  XXIV.  32-6  (Stephen  Hales). 

13  Diary  of  Viscount  Percival,  afterwards  first  Earl  of  Egmont.  Vol.  I, 
1730-1733,  Vol.  II,  1734-1738,  Vol.  Ill,  1739-1747.  Historical  Manuscripts 
Commission,  1920,  1923.  See  sketch  of  Percival  by  B.  A.  Roberts  in  his 
introduction  to  volume  I,  pp.  v-ix. 

14  Percival,  Diary,  I.  45. 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  307 


ley’s  famous  project,  so  fashionable  in  1725-1726,  had  the  sup¬ 
port  also  of  Palmerston.  Berkeley  believed  that  a  majority  of 
the  Associates  were  friendly.15  Percival  certainly  was  strongly 
attracted  by  the  Dean  of  Dromore’s  ‘refined  enthusiasm.’  He 
subscribed  £20016  and  perhaps  aided  in  securing  the  royal  char¬ 
ter  for  St.  Paul’s  College  and  the  grant  from  Parliament.  The 
essence  of  Berkeley’s  scheme  was  the  establishment  of  a  colonial 
college  to  educate  youths  from  the  English  plantations  for  the 
ministry,  and  to  train  Indians  as  missionaries  to  their  own  peo¬ 
ple.  He  had  fixed  upon  Bermuda  as  the  site  for  a  characteristic 
reason,  the  ‘innocence  and  simplicity  of  manners’  of  its  inhabi¬ 
tants.  The  Indians  he  regarded  as  peculiarly  open  to  conversion 
since,  ‘if  they  are  in  a  state  purely  natural,  and  unimproved  by 
education,  they  are  also  unincumbered  with  all  that  rubbish  of 
superstition  and  prejudice,  which  is  the  effect  of  a  wrong  one.’17 
Berkeley’s  dream  was  soon  dissipated,  but  its  passing  glamour 
had  served  to  fix  the  interest  of  Lord  Percival  in  America.  He 
even  toyed  with  the  idea  of  emigration.  To  Berkeley  in  Rhode 
Island  he  wrote:  ‘Almost  you  persuade  me  to  be  a  Rhodian.’18 
From  the  outset,  however,  Berkeley  had  met  with  ridicule  from 
men  who  had  first-hand  knowledge  of  America,  and  who  knew 
that  Bermuda  was  an  impossible  seat  for  a  college  to  train  North 
American  Indians.  William  Byrd  of  Virginia  in  correspond¬ 
ence,19  Oglethorpe  in  conversation,20  assured  Percival  that  the 
idea  was  fantastic.  None  was  more  vigorous  in  his  opposition 
than  Thomas  Bray. 

Bray’s  criticism  was  embodied  in  ‘A  memorial  relating  to 
the  Conversion  as  well  of  the  American  Indians,  as  of  the 

“Benjamin  Rand,  Berkeley  and  Percival,  1914,  p.  229;  see  also  pp.  203-6, 
223-5,  230  f.,  245. 

16  J.  S.  Anderson,  History  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  Colonies, 

III.  476. 

17  [George  Berkeley],  A  Proposal  for  the  better  Supplying  of  Churches 
in  our  Foreign  Plantations,  London,  1725,  especially  pp.  8,  16. 

18  Rand,  Berkeley  and  Percival,  p.  248.  Apropos  of  the  vogue  of  Berke¬ 
ley’s  scheme  Edward  Eggleston  aptly  described  this  as  the  ‘bubble  period’ 
in  philanthropy  ( Century  Magasine,  XXXVI.  117). 

“  Rand,  Berkeley  and  Percival,  pp.  243-7 :  Byrd  to  Percival,  June  10, 
1729.  The  writer  described  enthusiastically  the  back-country  he  had  recently 
visited  in  running  the  Virginia-North  Carolina  boundary.  ‘Did  the  poor 
people  in  the  old  world,  that  groan  under  tyranny  and  priesthood,  know 
how  happy  a  retreat  they  might  find  here,  it  would  not  long  lie  unin¬ 
habited.’ 

20  Percival,  Diary,  I.  45. 


308 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


African  Negroes.’  This  was  printed,  in  1727,  as  one  item  in 
his  Missionalia:  or,  a  Collection  of  Missionary  Pieces  relating 
to  the  Conversion  of  the  Heathen;  both  the  African  Negroes 
and  American  Indians.21  In  these  tracts  Bray  revealed  his  own 
concern  for  the  extension  of  missionary  activities  among  the 
American  Indians.  This,  he  declared,  was  a  valid  secondary 
object  of  the  D’Allone  trustees,  though  the  conversion  of 
negroes  had  been  the  chief  interest  of  the  benefactors.  But 
Berkeley’s  scheme  was  vetoed  as  impractical.  Instead,  Bray 
advocated  the  unique  expedient  of  establishing  artisan-mission 
colonies  on  the  frontiers  of  the  settlements.  Under  the  super¬ 
vision  of  the  parish  clergy  his  artisan-missionaries  would  labor 
to  Christianize  and  at  the  same  time  to  civilize  the  natives. 
Since  his  method  would  operate  gradually  to  build  up  a  barrier 
against  the  barbarous  Indians,  Bray  believed  that  it  would  be 
supported  by  the  governors  as  a  means  of  extending  their  terri¬ 
tories.  In  this  frontier  mission  scheme,  it  is  possible  to  see  one 
of  the  obscure  springs  of  the  Georgia  enterprise.  Certainly  the 
seriousness  with  which  the  Trustees  of  Georgia  later  approached 
their  responsibilities  for  the  Indians  was  part  of  their  inheri¬ 
tance  from  Bray. 

There  is  evidence,  too,  that  Bray  and  his  group  were  in 
sympathetic  contact  with  other  projects  which  pointed  more 
definitely  towards  actual  colonization  in  America.  Analysis  of 
the  personnel  of  the  various  pious,  philanthropic,  and  colonizing 
movements  which  converged  to  produce  Georgia  will  reveal  the 
interlocking  membership  of  the  Board  of  Trade  and  the  Par¬ 
liamentary  gaols  committees  of  1729  and  1730;  of  the  gaols 
committees  and  the  Associates  of  Dr.  Bray;  of  the  enlarged 
Associates  and  the  Georgia  Trust.  But  the  personal  connections 
were  even  more  involved.  In  1726  Purry’s  agent,  Jean  Watt, 
named  Dr.  Bray  with  ‘Messieurs  Hales,  Hodges,  Newman’  as 
among  ‘our  friends’  in  England,  and  suggested  an  application  to 
Hales  to  procure  aid  in  Holland  for  the  unfortunate  remnant 
of  the  Swiss  ‘Carolinians’  who  had  persisted  in  their  purpose 
to  emigrate.22  Thus  the  appeal  that  Georgia  made  to  foreign 

21  Copy  in  the  British  Museum.  See  B.  C.  Steiner,  ‘Two  Eighteenth 
Century  Missionary  Plans,’  in  Seuvnee  Review,  XI.  289-305. 

“GO.  5  :387,  f.  20.  In  his  will  Thomas  Bray  left  to  Mr.  John  Vatt  a 
small  sum  of  money.  P.C.C.,  55  Auber  (Somerset  House,  London). 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  309 


Protestants  was  quite  in  keeping  with  the  Bray  tradition.  Even 
more  significant  was  Bray’s  contact  with  the  colonial  scheme 
of  his  parishioner  and  close  friend,  Thomas  Coram.  Coram, 
who  is  chiefly  famous  as  the  founder  of  the  great  London 
Foundling  Hospital,  was  a  former  mariner  and  ship-builder  at 
Taunton,  Massachusetts.  At  this  time,  however,  he  was  a  Lon¬ 
don  merchant  engaged  in  colonial  commerce  and  in  promoting 
a  project  for  planting  ‘the  lands  lying  wast  and  derelict  between 
New  England  and  Nova  Scotia.’23  Contemporary  records  of 
Coram’s  conversations  with  his  rector  are  lacking,  but  in  1734 
he  wrote  a  striking  account  of  them  in  a  letter  to  Benjamin 
Colman  of  Boston.24  Bray,  he  said,  had  ‘often  lamented  the 
great  pains  I  had  for  many  years  took’  in  the  plan  for  coloni¬ 
zing  the  northern  frontier  of  New  England.  Shortly  before 
Christmas,  1729,  Coram  recalled,  Bray  had  predicted  that  he 
could  not  survive  the  winter,  ‘yet  he  would  before  he  dyed  find 
out  a  way  to  have  a  Settlement  made  for  the  Relei fe  of  such 
honest  poor  Distressed  Famelies  from  hence  as  by  Losses,  want 
of  Employment  or  otherwise  are  reduced  to  poverty  and  such 
who  were  persecuted  for  their  professing  the  protestant  Re¬ 
ligion  abroad,  to  be  happy  by  their  Labour  and  Industry  in 
some  part  of  His  Majesties  Dominions  in  America.’  The  east¬ 
ern  border  of  Maine,  however,  he  thought  too  northerly  and 
bleak  a  place  for  this  asylum.  Coram’s  narrative  is  in  line  with 
a  persistent  tradition  among  the  friends  of  Bray  and  the  execu¬ 
tors  of  his  pious  plans  that  it  was  Bray  who  first  moved  to 
organize  the  project  of  a  debtor  colony  in  America. 

I  Certain  it  is  that  Bray  was  deeply  concerned  with  the  con- 

23  H.  F.  B.  Compston,  Thomas  Coram,  London,  1918,  is  a  brief  biogra¬ 
phy,  inadequate  in  its  treatment  of  Coram’s  colonial  interests.  These  I  expect 
to  discuss  in  an  article  based  upon  a  mass  of  memorials,  etc.,  in  the  P.R.O., 
which  were  composed  by  Coram,  between  1713  and  1743,  in  his  role  of  pro¬ 
moter  of  a  succession  of  schemes  to  colonize  lands  on  the  Maine  border, 
in  Nova  Scotia,  and  Cat  Island  (Bahamas).  At  different  times  he  proposed 
as  settlers  retired  officers  and  soldiers,  French  Protestants,  convicts,  Irish, 
Palatines,  unemployed  artisans,  and  the  ‘graduates’  of  his  Foundling  Hos¬ 
pital.  Coram  bitterly  contested  the  eastern  claims  of  Massachusetts  and  of 
the  other  pretenders  to  the  Sagadahoc  region.  His  ideas  of  colonial  govern¬ 
ment  were  strikingly  liberal,  within  the  limits  of  effective  mercantilism. 
After  his  break  with  his  fellow  Trustees  he  sought  to  develop  Nova  Scotia 
as  a  rival  to  Georgia,  purged  of  the  latter’s  military  and  paternalistic 
features. 

14  W.  C.  Ford  (ed.),  ‘Letters  of  Thomas  Coram,’  Massachusetts  His¬ 
torical  Society,  Proceedings,  LVI.  15-56,  especially  pp.  20  f. 


310 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


dition  of  the  poor,  and  especially  of  imprisoned  debtors,  prior 
to  the  memorable  inquiry  of  the  parliamentary  committee  which 
turned  Oglethorpe’s  mind  toward  his  great  enterprise.  As  early 
as  1702  Bray  took  a  prominent  part  in  an  investigation  of  the 
prisons  by  the  S.P.C.K.25  Around  1727,  when  he  was  proposing 
his  artisan-mission  scheme,  his  interest  in  poor  prisoners  was 
revived,  and  he  undertook  to  raise  funds  for  their  relief.  To 
train  his  missionary-probationers  in  ‘the  more  distasteful  part 
of  their  office,’  he  sent  them  to  read  and  preach  to  the  wretches 
in  Whitechapel  and  the  Borough  Compter.  Besides  spiritual 
sustenance,  they  dispensed  bread,  beef,  and  broth  on  Sundays 
and  sometimes  on  week-days.  ‘On  this  occasion,’  asserted  Bray’s 
biographer,  ‘the  sore  was  first  opened  and  that  scene  of  in¬ 
humanity  imperfectly  discover’d,  which  afterwards  some  worthy 
Patriots  of  the  House  of  Commons  took  so  much  pains  tc 
enquire  into  and  redress.’26 

Those  ‘worthy  Patriots’  were,  of  course, 

the  generous  band 
Who,  touch’d  with  human  woe,  redressive  search’d 
Into  the  horrors  of  the  gloomy  jail. 

Such  was  James  Thomson’s  famous  characterization27  of  the 
committee  appointed  from  the  House  of  Commons  ‘to  enquire 
into  the  State  of  the  Gaols  of  the  Kingdom’  (February  25, 
1729). 28  Another  poet  close  to  the  philanthropic  movement  of 
the  day  was  the  brother  of  John  and  Charles  Wesley.  In  The  j 
Prisons  Open’d, 29  dedicated  to  the  committee,  the  Rev.  Samuel 
Wesley  etched  vignettes  in  verse  of  several  of  the  earnest  re- 

35  Anderson,  History  of  the  Church  in  the  Colonies,  IV.  74-6 ;  Secretan. 
Nelson,  p.  102.  ‘A  charitable  visit  to  prisons’  was  a  tract  listed  in  the  papers 
of  Bray’s  Trustees  of  the  Parochial  Libraries  (Rawlinson  MSS  D,  834,  I 
f.  52). 

26  [Samuel  Smith],  Publick  Spirit,  1746,  p.  51.  By  a  codicil  to  his  will, 
dated  February  1,  1 729  [/30] ,  Thomas  Bray  left  £5  and  his  chancel  and  pulpit 
mourning  to  Thomas  Grove  ‘in  consideration  of  the  trouble  he  has  had  in 
inspecting  the  prisons  and  enquiring  into  the  Necessitous  as  well  as  sick  ' 
Condition  of  the  poor  prisoners’  (P.C.C.,  55  Auber). 

27  From  Winter.  The  first  edition  appeared  in  1726;  the  thirty  lines  in 
praise  of  the  gaols  committee  were  interpolated  in  the  1730  edition.  There  is 
internal  evidence  that  they  were  written  before  the  revival  of  the  commit-  1 
tee  in  February,  1730. 

28  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  February  25,  1728/9. 

29 1  have  used  the  text  of  the  first  edition,  1729,  but  supplied  the  names,  l 
there  indicated  by  initials,  from  Poems  on  Several  Occasions  (second 
edition,  1743). 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  311 


formers  who  exposed  the  oppressions  of  the  notorious  Barn- 
bridge,  keeper  of  the  Fleet : 

Yet,  Britain  cease  thy  Captives’  Woes  to  mourn, 

To  break  their  Chains,  see  Oglethorpe  was  born! 

Vernon,  whose  steady  Truth  no  Threats  can  bend! 

And  Hughes,  the  Sailor’s  never-failing  Friend ! 

Towers,  whose  rich  Youth  can  Ease  and  Pleasure  fly, 
And  Percival  renown’d  for  Piety  ! 

Cornewall,  to  aid  the  Friendless  never  slow, 

Whose  gen’rous  Breast  still  melts  at  Humane  Woe ! 

These  dare  the  Tyrants  long  secure  oppose; 

Thus  gracious  Heav’n  its  Benefits  bestows, 

The  Antidote  is  found  there  where  the  Poison  grows. 

James  Edward  Oglethorpe  was  chairman:  it  was  he  who  had 
moved  for  the  appointment  of  the  committee  and  who  supplied 
much  of  the  driving  force  behind  its  work  and  that  of  the 
revived  committee  at  the  next  session.  ‘A  young  gentleman  of 
very  public  spirit,’  Percival  described  him  to  Berkeley.30  In 
Parliament  he  was  a  frequent  speaker  in  opposition  to  Sir  Rob¬ 
ert  Walpole.  A  member  of  the  S.P.G.,  and  later  deputy-gov¬ 
ernor  of  the  Royal  African  Company,  his  interests  ran  as 
strongly  towards  the  development  of  the  colonies  as  towards 
social  reform  in  England.  Of  the  six  committeemen  named  in 
Wesley’s  poem,  four — Oglethorpe,  Percival,  Edward  Hughes, 
and  Thomas  Towers — were  later  joined  as  founders  of 
Georgia.  Among 

the  rest  for  ardent  Goodness  fam’d 
Unam’d,  tho’  greatly  worthy  to  be  nam’d, 

were  several  others  who  at  one  stage  or  another  cooperated  in 
the  colonial  scheme  that  grew  out  of  the  committee’s  labors : 
Major  Charles  Selwyn,  John  Laroche,  Robert  Hucks,  Erasmus 
Phillips  and  Rogers  Holland.  This  committee  and  its  successor 
also  included  several  members  of  the  Board  of  Trade  and 
Plantations.  Martin  Bladen  (‘Trade’  Bladen)  served  in  both 
investigations  of  1729  and  1730.31 

30  Rand,  Berkeley  and  Percival,  p.  270. 

31  Ninety-six  members  were  listed  in  the  Journals,  February  25,  1728/9, 
though  many  were  not  active.  Wesley  named  twenty-six  ‘acting  members’ 
in  the  dedication  of  his  poem,  as  follows :  Oglethorpe,  Percival,  Sir  Thomas 
Lowther,  Sir  Humphrey  Howarth,  Robert  Byng,  Charles  Selwyn,  Erasmus 
Phillips,  Stamp  Brooksbank,  John  La  Roche,  Charles  Withers,  John  Crosse, 
Velters  Cornwall,  Robert  Huckes,  Sir  Robert  Clifton,  Sir  Archibald  Grant, 


312 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


After  holding  numerous  hearings  the  committee  in  its  re¬ 
ports  exposed  gross  abuses  by  brutal  keepers  at  the  Fleet  and 
Marshalsea  prisons.  Popular  interest  was  strongly  aroused. 
Hogarth  painted  the  scene  of  Bambridge’s  examination,32  and 
poets  eulogized  the  social  reformers  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Parliament,  in  1729,  passed  ameliorative  laws.33  But  opposition 
had  also  appeared,  in  high  quarters.  The  courts  were  charged 
by  Hughes  and  others  with  obstructing  reform,  and  the  min¬ 
istry  was  regarded  as  hostile.  Other  prisons  of  the  Kingdom 
had  not  yet  been  probed.  Thomson  voiced  the  appeal  of  earnest 
men : 

Ye  sons  of  mercy  !  yet  resume  the  search  ; 


Much  still  untouch’d  remains ;  in  this  rank  age, 

Much  is  the  patriot’s  weeding  hand  requir’d. 

To  finish  their  work  and  to  vindicate  their  reputations,  ‘being 
villified  in  the  world  for  proceeding  so  zealously  last  year,’ 
Oglethorpe  and  the  more  earnest  members,  in  February,  1730, 
pressed  successfully  for  the  revival  of  the  committee.34  Among 
the  reformers  now  added  were  William  Sloper,  Captain  Francis 
Eyles,  Alderman  George  Heathcote,  and  Bray’s  patron,  Lord 
Palmerston.  It  is  significant  that  the  second  gaols  committee 
included  substantially  the  whole  parliamentary  group  later 
named  as  Trustees  in  the  Georgia  charter. 

The  actual  connecting  link  between  the  committee  and  the 
Georgia  Trust  was  supplied,  however,  by  the  enlarged  Asso¬ 
ciates  of  Dr.  Bray.  While  the  reforming  element  in  the  com¬ 
mittee  was  being  recruited,  Oglethorpe  and  Percival  were  en- 

Mr.  Alderman  Parsons,  Edward  Vernon,  John  Campbel,  Rogers  Holland, 
James  Tuffnell,  Thomas  Lewis  of  Radnor,  Robert  More,  John  Norris, 
Edward  Hughes,  Thomas  Towers,  Sir  Abraham  Elton.  Of  these  the  names 
cf  Withers,  More,  Norris,  and  Towers  do  not  appear  in  the  Journals  list 
for  1729,  though  all  were  members  of  the  revived  committee.  Besides 
Bladen,  the  first  committee  included  Sir  Thomas  Frankland  and  possibly 
Thomas  Pelham  of  the  Board  of  Trade;  the  second  committee,  Edward 
Ashe. 

“Original  in  National  Portrait  Gallery,  London;  reproduced  in  Wheat¬ 
ley’s  Hogarth’s  London,  opposite  p.  389,  and  elsewhere. 

33  2  George  II,  c.  xx,  c.  xxii,  c.  xxxii. 

34  Percival,  Diary,  I.  46,  49  f. ;  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  Feb¬ 
ruary  17,  1729/30.  Eighty-eight  members  were  listed,  more  than  half  of 
whom  had  served  on  the  earlier  committee.  Percival’s  Diary  named  several 
others  not  listed  as  attending  meetings.  For  proceedings  see  Diary,  I.  55,  78, 
90,  95. 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  313 


gaged  in  a  parallel  reconstruction  of  the  closely  affiliated 
charitable  trusts  for  parochial  libraries  and  the  conversion  of 
blacks.  Their  object  was  to  associate  the  reformers  in  the  House 
with  philanthropists  outside  in  a  constructive  effort  on  behalf 
of  the  English  poor.  For  it  was  now  evident  that  the  partial 
success  of  the  1729  committee  had  created  a  social  problem  as 
serious,  perhaps,  as  the  evils  redressed.  The  act  of  2  George  II, 
cap.  xxii  for  the  relief  of  insolvent  debtors,  had  released  from 
confinement  great  numbers  of  poor  prisoners — as  many  as  ten 
thousand,  Oglethorpe  told  Percival  in  April,  1730,  adding  that 
three  hundred  others  had  already  returned  from  Prussia  to  take 
the  benefit  of  the  act.  Another  contemporary  estimate  set  a 
much  higher  total.35  The  immediate  result  was  a  great  increase 
of  unemployment  in  London.  One  obvious  remedy  was  coloni¬ 
zation  overseas. 

On  February  13,  1730,  Oglethorpe  and  Percival  met  at  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  the  former  unfolded  his  plans  for 
pressing  the  prison  investigation  and  at  the  same  time  promo¬ 
ting  charitable  colonies  in  America.  The  conversation,  as  re¬ 
corded  in  Percival’s  Diary ,36  described  the  immediate  inception 
of  the  Georgia  enterprise  : 

I  met  Mr.  Oglethorp,  who  informed  me  that  he  had  found 
out  a  very  considerable  charity,  even  fifteen  thousand  pounds, 
which  lay  in  trustees’  hands,  and  was  like  to  have  been  lost,  because 
the  heir  of  the  testator  being  one  of  the  trustees,  refused  to  concur 
with  the  other  two,  in  any  methods  for  disposing  the  money,  in 
hopes,  as  they  were  seventy  years  old,  each  of  them,  they  would 
die  soon,  and  he  should  remain  only  surviving  trustee,  and  then 
might  apply  it  all  to  his  own  use.  That  the  two  old  men  were 
very  honest  and  desirous  to  be  discharged  of  their  burthen,  and 
had  concurred  with  him  to  get  the  money  lodged  in  a  Master  of 
Chancery’s  hands  till  new  trustees  should  be  appointed  to  dispose 
thereof  in  a  way  that  should  be  approved  of  by  them  in  conjunction 
with  the  Lord  Chancellor.  That  the  heir  of  the  testator  had 
opposed  this,  and  there  had  been  a  lawsuit  thereupon,  which  Ogle¬ 
thorp  had  carried  against  the  heir,  who  appealed  against  the  de¬ 
cree  ;  but  my  Lord  Chancellor  had  confirmed  it,  and  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  him  to  have  been  able  in  one  year’s  time  to  be  able  at 

35  Diary,  I.  90.  Compare  the  assertion  that  this  act  released  97,248  pris¬ 
oners,  from  news-letter  cited  by  I.  S.  Leadam,  History  of  England  from 
the  Accession  of  Anne  to  the  Death  of  George  II,  1909,  p.  342. 

36  Diary,  I.  44-6.  In  Chancery  Entry  Book,  1729  B,  ff.  3,  12  bis,  are  refer¬ 
ences  to  the  case  of  Oglethorpe  vs.  Cottin. 


314 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


law  to  settle  this  affair.  That  the  trustees  had  consented  to  this 
on  condition  that  the  trust  should  be  annexed  to  some  trusteeship 
already  in  being,  and  that  being  informed  that  I  was  a  trustee  for 
Mr.  Dalone’s  legacy,  who  left  about  a  thousand  pounds  to  convert 
negroes,  he  had  proposed  me  and  my  associates  as  proper  persons 
to  be  made  trustees  of  this  new  affair ;  that  the  old  gentlemen 
approved  of  us,  and  he  hoped  I  would  accept  it  in  conjunction 
with  himself  and  several  of  our  Committee  of  Gaols,  as  Mr.  Tow¬ 
ers,  Mr.  Hughes,  Mr.  Holland,  Major  Selwyn,  and  some  other 
gentlemen  of  worth,  as  Mr.  Sloper  and  Mr.  Vernon,  Commissioner 
of  the  Excise. 

Percival  complimented  Oglethorpe  warmly  upon  his  industry  in 
recovering  so  great  a  charity,  and  expressed  his  pleasure  in 
being  joined  with  gentlemen  of  so  much  worth.  But  he  indi¬ 
cated  that  he  had  been  thinking  of  quitting  the  trusteeship  of 
D’Allone’s  legacy,  which  he  had  only  accepted  in  the  interest  of 
Berkeley’s  college.  Oglethorpe,  after  expressing  his  belief  that 
nothing  would  now  come  of  the  Irish  dean’s  college,  returned 
to  the  new  trusteeship.  The  old  trustees  of  King  the  haber¬ 
dasher’s  legacy  would  as  yet  only  set  aside  £5000  for  the  new 
project,  but  this,  he  thought,  would  answer.  The  scheme,  he 
continued, 

is  to  procure  a  quantity  of  acres  either  from  the  Government  or 
by  gift  or  purchase  in  the  West  Indies  [i.e.,  America],  and  to  plant 
thereon  a  hundred  miserable  wretches  who  being  let  out  of  gaol 
by  the  last  year’s  Act,  are  now  starving  about  the  town  for  want 
of  employment ;  that  they  should  be  settled  all  together  by  way 
of  colony,  and  be  subject  to  subordinate  rulers,  who  should  inspect 
their  behaviour  and  labour  under  one  chief  head ;  that  in  time  they 
with  their  families  would  increase  so  fast  as  to  become  a  security 
and  defence  of  our  possessions  against  the  French  and  Indians  of 
those  parts ;  that  they  should  be  employed  in  cultivating  flax  and 
hemp,  which  being  allowed  to  make  into  yarn,  would  be  returned 
to  England  and  Ireland,  and  greatly  promote  our  manufactures. 
All  which  I  approved. 

Was  Oglethorpe,  as  this  interview  with  Percival  implies,  the 
originator  of  the  debtor  colony  scheme?  Perhaps;  but  the  idea 
was  in  the  air,  and  other  such  projects  had  already  been 
broached.37 

37  For  a  tantalizing  clue  to  one  such  scheme  of  this  period  see  my  refer¬ 
ence  in  Promotion  Literature  of  Georgia,  1925,  p.  8. 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  315 


In  1729,  when  the  surrender  of  the  Carolina  charter  to  the 
Crown  was  pending,  there  had  been  published  in  London  the 
first  edition  of  Joshua  Gee’s  The  Trade  and  Navigation  of 
Great  Britain  Considered,  one  of  the  most  widely  read  of  the 
commercial  tracts  of  the  century.38  A  merchant  in  the  West 
India  trade,  in  1718  Gee  had  been  one  of  the  promoters,  with 
Coram,  of  the  project  for  settling  soldiers  in  Nova  Scotia  and 
on  the  Maine  border  to  raise  hemp  and  produce  naval  stores.39 
But  by  1729  his  interest  had  turned  from  the  northern  towards 
the  southern  frontier.  Repeatedly  he  insisted  upon  the  value  of 
the  southern  colonies,  of  Virginia,  and  especially  of  Carolina, 
‘the  most  improveable,  in  my  Appprehension,  of  any  of  our 
Colonies ;  yet  because  it  is  the  Property  of  particular  Persons, 
supplies  us  with  little  more  than  one  Commodity  of  Rice  (tho’ 
it  is  capable  of  many  other  valuable  ones)  and  is  liable  to  be 
overrun  by  the  French,  Spaniards,  and  Indians,  for  want  of  a 
sufficient  Protection.’  Pointing  to  the  line  of  French  forts  from 
the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf,  Gee  proposed  that  the  English 
build  posts  of  their  own  along  the  Appalachians,  to  secure  ‘the 
Mines  contained  in  them,  to  protect  the  Indian  and  Skin  Trade, 
and  to  preserve  the  Navigation’  of  the  rivers  of  Maryland, 
Virginia,  and  Carolina.  This  suggestion  somewhat  vaguely  re¬ 
called  the  Barnwell  proposals  for  frontier  forts  which  had  been 
endorsed  by  the  Board  of  Trade  in  1720.  Elsewhere  Gee  clearly 
anticipated  the  settlement  schemes  of  Johnson  and  Oglethorpe. 
In  view  of  the  impending  surrender  of  Carolina,  he  demon¬ 
strated  that  the  southern  piedmont  was  a  country  ‘large  enough 
to  canton  out  into  distinct  Lots  [i.e.,  townships?]  all  the  Inhabi¬ 
tants  we  shall  be  capable  of  sending  .  .  .  ,  which  would  also 
be  a  Security  to  our  Frontiers  against  the  Incroachments  of 
the  French  who  lie  on  the  other  Side  those  Mountains.’  But 
from  this  point  of  view  the  most  significant  passages  in  his 
pamphlet  were  contained  in  chapter  xxvii.  There  he  set  forth 
proposals  for  transporting  and  colonizing  the  poor  which  were 
almost  verbally  reproduced  in  Oglethorpe’s  first  recorded  ex¬ 
position  of  his  charitable  colony  plan.  Indeed,  one  might  suppose 

38  Later  editions  appeared  in  rapid  sequence,  1730,  1731,  1738,  1750,  1760, 
1767.  The  quotations  are  from  pp.  23,  60  f.  and  ‘conclusion,’  pp.  12-13,  of 
the  first  edition. 

39  Acts  of  the  Privy  Council,  Colonial,  1680-1720,  pp.  393,  744,  et  seq. 


316 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


that  Oglethorpe,  when  he  met  Percival  in  February,  1730,  had 
just  come  from  a  reading  of  Gee.  Recalling  that  the  French  had 
lately  sent  over  great  numbers  of  vagrants  to  the  settlements 
on  the  Mississippi,  Gee  urged  that  the  methods  used  by  the 
English  for  transporting  convicts  be  employed  as  well  ‘for  all 
Persons  .  .  .  that  cannot  find  Methods  of  Subsistence  at 
home.’  These  should  be  settled  on  tracts  of  one  hundred  acres 
or  more  on  the  exposed  southern  borders,  their  quit-rents  to  be 
paid  after  several  years  from  the  produce  of  their  lands,  that 
is,  in  hemp  and  flax.  Such  colonists,  marrying  young,  would 
multiply  rapidly,  ‘by  which  Means  those  vast  Tracts  of  Land 
now  waste  will  be  planted,  and  secured  from  the  Danger  we 
apprehend  of  the  French  over-running  them.’  Both  Gee  and 
Oglethorpe  expected  that  silk  culture  would  also  develop. 
Though  Gee  hardly  suggested  a  new  colony,  under  separate  gov¬ 
ernment,  in  other  respects  the  resemblances  between  Ogle¬ 
thorpe’s  ideas  and  his  own  were  so  close  as  to  raise  the  pre¬ 
sumption  of  derivation,  or  a  common  origin.  Oglethorpe,  it  is 
likely,  envisaged  his  first  modest  scheme  in  terms  of  Gee’s  pub¬ 
lished  suggestions. 

Oglethorpe,  moreover,  when  he  approached  Percival,  said 
that  he  had  already  discussed  American  colonization  with  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  and  ‘some  other  considera¬ 
ble  persons.’  One  of  these,  there  is  strong  reason  to  believe, 
was  the  invalid  Dr.  Bray.  The  latter,  in  a  codicil  to  his  will 
drawn  February  1,  1729[/30],  recalled  that  he  had  ‘from  time 
to  time  negociated  for  these  several  years  last  past  and  .  .  . 
been  at  the  trouble  of  drawing  and  expence  of  fair  copyes  of 
various  Memorials  and  Proposalls  for  the  proper  Application 
of  the  late  Mr.  King  of  Milk  Street  Bequest  for  the  Informa¬ 
tion  of  the  severall  Trustees  according  to  the  Testators  In¬ 
tention  and  other  expences  about  the  same  to  the  amount  of  at 
least  £50.’  Since  this  was  the  trust  that  Oglethorpe  had  fought 
for  in  Chancery  it  is  likely  that  the  two  reformers  were  in  com¬ 
munication,  and  that  it  was  Bray  who  suggested  his  own  As¬ 
sociates  for  the  supervision  of  the  charitable  colony  scheme  in 
which  both  were  interested.  That  a  conference  occurred,  and 
that  Bray  proposed  the  enlargement  of  the  Associates  to  em¬ 
brace  the  new  cause,  was  positively  affirmed  in  1731  by  the 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  317 


Rev.  Samuel  Smith.  The  assistant  rector  of  St.  Botolph’s, 
and  with  Belitha  and  the  Rev.  Stephen  Hales  one  of  the  over¬ 
seers  of  Bray’s  will,  Smith  became  in  1730  a  secretary  of  the 
Associates  and  in  1732  a  Trustee  of  Georgia;  it  was  he  who 
drew  up  in  1731  the  official  biography  of  Bray.  The  ‘zeal  and 
compassion’  of  the  prison  reformers,  he  wrote,  ‘could  not  but 
procure  for  them  the  largest  measure  of  esteem  for  one  dis¬ 
tinguished  by  such  an  extensive  benevolence  as  Dr.  Bray.’  As 
his  years  pressed  upon  him  Bray  ‘was  desirous  of  enlarging 
the  number  of  his  Associates  and  adding  such  to  them  in 
whose  zeal  and  integrity  he  might  repose  entire  confidence.  The 
Inquiry  into  the  State  of  the  Gaols  was  an  event  which  at  this 
juncture  appeard  to  have  in  it  something  providential,  as  it 
gave  occasion  to  an  interview  between  the  doctor  and  Mr. 
Oglethorpe.  This  worthy  gentleman,  when  it  was  proposed, 
wanted  no  arguments  to  prevail  on  him  to  accept  the  Trust,  and 
engaged  several  others,  some  of  the  first  rank  and  distinction, 
to  act  with  him  and  the  former  Associates  in  it.  All  the  under¬ 
takings  indeed  were  of  such  a  nature,  as  it  well  became  the 
character  of  great  and  generous  minds  to  support.  For  to  these 
two  designs  of  founding  Libraries,  and  instructing  the  Negroes, 
a  third  was  now  added,  which  tho’  at  first  view  appears  to  be 
of  a  different  nature,  has  a  perfect  coincidence  with  them.  .  .  . 
As  the  doctor  was  concern’d  with  getting  this  undertaking  on 
foot,  I  can’t  justly  be  charged  with  a  digression  for  taking 
notice  of  it.’40  In  1734  Thomas  Coram  went  even  further  in 
claiming  credit  for  Bray  as  the  author  of  the  Georgia  enter¬ 
prise.41  He  wrote  that  after  Bray  had  rejected  the  Maine  border 
as  the  site  for  the  charitable  colony  which  he  hoped  to  see 
planted  before  he  died,  ‘he  sent  for  Mr.  James  Vernon,  the 
Reverend  Dr.  Hales,  Ld.  Percival  and  Mr.  Oglethorpe  and  2  or 
3  more  and  proposed  their  entering  into  an  association  with 

40  ‘A  Short  Historical  Account,’  loc.  cit.,  pp.  46-8.  Compare  Publick  Spirit, 
1746,  pp.  52-4.  The  will  is  in  P.C.C.,  55  Auber.  The  tradition  of  Bray’s 
prime  agency  in  the  colony  scheme  was  later  supported  by  Edward  Ben- 
tham  in  a  Latin  memoir  of  one  of  the  Associates :  De  vita  et  moribus  Johan- 
nis  Burtoni,  1771,  pp.  17  f.  Cf.  Gentleman’ s  Magazine,  XLI  (1771),  305-8. 

41  Coram  to  Benjamin  Colman,  April  30,  1734,  in  Massachusetts  His¬ 
torical  Society  Proceedings,  LXI,  20  f.  Coram  himself  was  named  as  the 
one  ‘who  first  projected  the  Colony’  in  Thomas  Stephens’  historical  novel, 
The  Castle-Builders  (second  edition,  1759),  p.  66. 


318 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


him  for  the  Carrying  on  his  Design  of  a  Colony,  and  two  De¬ 
signs  of  his  own.’  Coram,  to  be  sure,  belonged  to  a  religious- 
minded  faction  of  the  Trustees,  who  soon  came  to  reprobate 
the  more  worldly  aims  of  the  ‘Oglethorpians.’  Not  unnaturally 
the  tradition  of  Bray’s  prime  agency  in  all  three  charities  was 
cherished,  and  possibly  exaggerated,  by  this  group.  Whatever 
his  personal  role,  Bray  died  February  15,  1730,  when  the 
project  was  still  in  embryo.  ‘He  was  a  great  Small  man,’  de¬ 
clared  Coram,  ‘and  had  done  Great  good  things  in  his  life 
Time.’42 

From  Oglethorpe’s  references  to  the  French  and  Indians  it 
is  evident  that  from  the  first  a  continental,  and  a  frontier  loca¬ 
tion  for  the  charitable  colony  was  intended.  The  earliest  specific 
mention  of  Carolina  was  in  the  record  of  a  conference  between 
Oglethorpe  and  Percival  at  the  nobleman’s  seat  of  Charlton, 
June  26,  1730. 43  It  was  probably  more  than  a  coincidence  that 
this  was  the  first  interview  between  two  projectors  since  the 
Board  of  Trade  had  instructed  Johnson  to  extend  the  settle¬ 
ment  of  South  Carolina  as  far  as  the  river  Altamaha  (June  10, 
1730).  When  it  is  recalled  that,  from  February  to  May,  Bladen 
and  Edward  Ashe  of  the  Board  of  Trade  had  been  collabo¬ 
rating  with  Oglethorpe  and  his  circle  in  the  prisons  investiga¬ 
tion,  the  process  whereby  the  charitable  colony  came  to  be  fixed 
in  that  segment  of  the  frontier,  and  assimilated  for  a  time  to 
the  Barnwell-Johnson  township  scheme,  becomes  fairly  obvious. 
It  was  almost  certainly  the  long-maturing  policy  of  the  colonial 
administration  to  occupy  and  protect  the  exposed  southern 
border  that  determined  the  precise  locale  of  the  colony  of 
Georgia. 

By  feoffment,  confirmed  by  the  terms  of  his  last  will,  Bray 
had  devolved  upon  the  Associates  the  D’Allone  trust  and  also 
his  parochial  library  charity.  Their  authority  was  confirmed  by 
a  decree  of  Chancery  in  1731.44  Meanwhile,  the  enlargement 

42  Reference  in  note  41. 

43  Percival,  Diary,  I.  98. 

44  An  Account  of  the  Designs,  1764,  p.  7;  ‘The  designs  [of]  .  .  .  the 
Associates,’  in  Samuel  Smith,  Sermon  (1733),  p.  38.  On  account,  presum¬ 
ably,  of  the  inadequacies  of  the  Chancery  indexes  for  this  period  I  have  not 
discovered  the  decree.  In  his  will  Bray  referred  at  times  to  his  ‘Associates 
as  well  for  disposing  of  Mr.  D’Allone’s  Bequest  as  Parochial  Libraries’  as  if 
they  were  merged,  though  elsewhere  he  named  them  separately.  To  them  he 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  319 


of  the  Associates  in  scope  and  personnel  had  been  effected.  In 
April,  1730,  Percival  took  legal  counsel  as  to  the  method,  and 
was  informed  that  it  could  not  be  done  by  the  original  trustees, 
but  only  by  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  by  bill  and  answer.  By 
July,  apparently,  the  reorganization  was  completed.  On  July  1 
Percival  recorded  that  he  ‘Went  to  town  to  a  meeting  of  the 
new  Society  for  fulfilling  Mr.  Dalone’s  will  in  the  conversion 
of  negroes,  and  disposing  of  five  thousand  pounds  ...  in 
settling  some  hundred  of  families  in  Carolina,  who  came  neces¬ 
sitous  out  of  gaols  by  virtue  of  our  late  debtors  Act.’  In  1737 
an  advertisement  of  ‘The  Associates  of  the  late  Dr.  Bray’ 
referred  to  their  activities  ‘since  July,  1730.’45 

The  various  names  by  which  the  ‘new  society’  was  described 
by  Percival  in  his  Diary  possibly  indicated  the  varying  char¬ 
acter  of  the  business  transacted  at  their  successive  meetings. 
Thus,  on  July  15,  1730,  ‘Went  to  town  to  the  meeting  of  our 
Society  for  converting  negroes,  and  returned  to  dinner’ ;  on 
July  18,  ‘Colonel  Schutz  gave  me  out  of  the  Prince’s  charity 
money  ten  guineas  for  conversion  of  the  blacks  and  promoting 
the  settlement  of  a  colony  in  the  West  Indies’ ;  and  on  July  30, 
‘Went  to  town  to  the  Society  of  Associates  for  Mr.  Dalone’s 
Legacy  to  convert  blacks  in  America,  and  settle  a  colony  in 
America.’46  Little  attempt  was  made  prior  to  the  granting  of 
the  Georgia  charter,  and  even  for  some  time  thereafter,  to 

left  without  distinction  a  residuary  legacy  of  £300;  the  income  from  certain 
of  his  books,  subject  to  a  life-interest  in  a  one-half  share  thereof ;  four  and  a 
quarter  shares  in  ‘the  Mine  Adventure;  and  also,  subject  to  the  life  interest 
of  his  son,  the  residue  of  his  personal  estate.  There  were  also  small  legacies 
for  libraries  for  chaplains  on  men-of-war,  for  the  probationary  mission¬ 
aries,  and  for  individuals  who  had  aided  him  in  his  philanthropies. 

45  Percival,  Diary,  I.  93,  98;  Nichols,  Literary  Anecdotes,  II.  119.  The 
minutes  of  the  society  at  this  period  have  not  been  discovered.  But  in  the 
Sloane  MSS  4051,  f.  311,  is  a  copy,  transmitted  to  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  ‘of  a 
Minute  of  the  General  Meeting  of  the  Gentlemen  associated  for  executing 
Mr.  D’Allone’s  Will;  by  Instructing  the  Negroes  of  the  British  Plantations 
in  the  Christian  Religion :  And  also  for  settling  parochial  Libraries  in 
Great  Britain  &  Ireland ;  and  for  establishing  a  Charitable  Colony  in 
America,  on  the  12th.  of  August  1731.’  Anderson  had  acquainted  the  meet¬ 
ing  that  Sloane  was  desirous  of  obtaining  materials  relating  to  missionary 
enterprises  among  the  heathen,  and  was  ordered  to  acquaint  him  that  ‘they 
will  speedily  prepare  &  present  him  with  a  Manuscript  Copy  of  a  Work, 
intended  to  be  published,  Giving  an  Account  of  the  Life  of  the  late  Dr. 
Thomas  Bray.  .  .  Together  with  Some  Account  of  the  Proceedings  and  De¬ 
signs  of  the  Gentlemen  associated  as  above  named.’  See  above,  note  4,  and 
references. 

46  Diary,  I.  98,  99,  273,  276. 


320 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


differentiate  the  administration  of  the  three  kindred  charities. 
The  long  series  of  Bray  ‘anniversary  sermons,’47  provided  for 
by  a  fund  left  in  his  will,  was  inaugurated  February  23,  1731, 
when  the  Rev.  Samuel  Smith  preached,  as  the  Gentleman  s 
Masagine  reported,  before  ‘the  associates  of  Dr.  Bray,  deceased, 
at  the  Church  of  St.  Augustine,  near  St.  Paul’s.’  He  spoke  in 
praise  of  all  three  charities.  ‘A  Recital  of  the  diffusive  Advan¬ 
tages,  arising  from  each  Design,’  he  declared,  ‘will  be  a  recital 
of  your  Praises,  who  support  All.’48  At  the  meetings  of  this 
conglomerate  trust,  between  1730  and  1732,  the  colonizing 
enterprise  took  shape.  It  was  at  a  meeting  of  the  ‘Society  of 
Associates’  on  July  30,  1730,  that  the  petition  to  the  King  and 
Council  ‘for  obtaining  a  grant  of  lands  on  the  south-west  of 
Carolina  for  settling  poor  persons  of  London,’  was  agreed 
upon  and  partly  signed  by  the  ‘Associates.’  At  the  same  time 
the  campaign  for  public  subscriptions  was  inaugurated,  and 
that  remarkable  program  of  publicity  was  begun  which  gave 
Georgia  for  a  season  a  popular  vogue  unexampled  in  the  earlier 
record  of  English  colonization.  On  that  day  the  London  Daily 
Journal  announced:  ‘We  hear  there  is  a  noble  Settlement  going 
to  be  made  upon  Savanna  River  in  South  Carolina,  and  that 
Gentlemen  of  great  Honour  and  Worth  are  at  the  Head  of 
that  Affair.’49 

The  roster  of  the  society  amply  confirms  the  other  evidence 
that  the  enlarged  Associates  of  Dr.  Bray  formed  the  nidus  of 
the  Georgia  Board.50  The  Associates  included  some  eight  indi- 

47  See  my  Promotion  Literature  of  Georgia,  1925,  p.  5  note. 

45  Gentleman's  Magazine,  I.  80  (February,  1731)  ;  Samuel  Smith,  Ser¬ 
mon  (1733),  p.  27.  See  also  Burton,  Sermon  (1733),  and  Percival,  Diary, 
I.  224-6. 

40  Percival,  Diary,  I.  99;  see  also  pp.  98,  120,  127,  128  f.,  154,  155,  157, 
164,  165,  167,  172,  193,  204,  209,  214-20,  223,  226,  230-2.  235,  254,  260.  265, 
266,  273,  276,  285  f. ;  London  Daily  Journal,  July  30,  1730.  On  the  publicity 
campaign  and  the  vogue  of  Georgia,  see  my  Promotion  Literature  of  Georgia, 
1925. 

“The  list  in  Publick  Spirit,  1746,  follows:  ‘John  Lord  Viscount  Percival, 
now  Earl  of  Egmont ;  the  Reverend  Mr.  (now  Dr.)  Stephen  Hales;  Wil¬ 
liam  Belitha,  Esq. ;  the  Honourable  Edward  Digby,  Esq. ;  the  Honourable 
George  Carpenter,  Esq.,  now  Lord  Carpenter;  James  Oglethorpe,  Esq.,  now 
Major-General;  Edward  Harley,  Esq.;  the  Honourable  James  Vernon, 
Esq.;  Edward  Hughes,  Esq.;  Robert  Hucks,  Esq.;  Thomas  Tower,  Esq.; 
Rogers  Holland,  Esq.;  John  Laroche,  Esq.;  Major  Charles  Selwyn ;  Robert 
More,  Esq.;  William  Sloper,  Esq.;  Oliver  St.  John,  Esq.;  Henry  Hastings, 
Esq.;  George  Heathcote,  Esq.;  Francis  Eyles,  Esq.;  Mr.  Adam  Anderson; 
Sir  James  Lowther ;  Captain  Thomas  Coram ;  the  Reverend  Mr.  Digby 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  321 


viduals  who  never  served  as  Georgia  Trustees,  but  no  one  was 
named  in  the  royal  charter  from  outside  that  composite  society. 
The  list  of  thirty  members  was  headed  by  three  of  the  original 
Associates :  Lord  Percival,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Stephen  Hales,  and 
William  Belitha.  Exactly  half  of  the  Associates  were  members 
of  Parliament,  and  all  but  two  or  three  of  these — the  Hon. 
Edward  Digby,  Sir  James  Lowther,  and  possibly  Edward  Har¬ 
ley — had  served  on  one  or  other  gaols  committee.  Harley, 
brother  of  the  Earl  of  Oxford,  was  a  well-known  philanthropist 
who  in  1725  had  become  chairman  of  the  trustees  of  the  charity- 
schools  of  London.51  He  was  one  of  the  four  parliamentary 
members  who  were  later  omitted  from  the  Georgia  Trust.52 
Digby  was  probably  drawn  in  as  the  nephew  of  the  pious  Lord 
Digby  who  had  been  a  lifelong  friend  and  patron  of  Dr.  Bray. 
The  Bray  tradition  was  further  represented  by  the  group  of 
seven  clergymen,  five  of  whom  continued  as  Trustees.  Of  these 
the  most  famous,  after  Hales,  was  John  Burton,  D.D.,  the¬ 
ologian  and  classical  scholar,  who  later  achieved  a  great  reputa¬ 
tion  as  an  Oxford  don.53  Burton  and  Oglethorpe  were  con¬ 
temporaries  at  Corpus  Christi,  but  according  to  Burton’s  Latin 
memoirist  it  was  Bray  who  drew  him  into  this  circle.  The  Rev. 
Richard  Bundy54  was  a  chaplain-in-ordinary  at  court,  while  the 
Rev.  Arthur  Bedford  had  won  some  note  as  a  fellow-crusader 
with  Collier  against  the  stage.55  The  pious  and  philanthropic 
groups  outside  of  Parliament  were  represented  by  these  clergy¬ 
men,  and  by  several  other  worthy  persons,  two  of  whom  also 
qualified  as  authorities  on  commerce  and  plantations.  Adam 
Anderson,  secretary  of  the  Scottish  Corporation  of  London, 
was  second  accountant  at  the  South  Sea  House,  and  was  ac¬ 
quiring  that  reputation  as  a  trade  expert  which  his  authorship 
of  the  Origin  of  Commerce  (1764)  has  perpetuated.50  Captain 
Thomas  Coram  imported  the  salty  dialect  of  the  sea  into  dis- 

Cotes ;  the  Reverend  Mr.  Arthur  Bedford ;  the  Reverend  Mr.  Samuel  Smith ; 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Richard  Bundy;  the  Reverend  Mr.  John  Burton;  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Daniel  Somerscald.’ 

61  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  XXIV.  394. 

62  Overton,  Life  in  the  English  Church,  p.  123. 

53  Bentham’s  memoir,  cited  in  note  40,  and  Dictionary  of  National  Bi¬ 
ography,  VIII.  8. 

M  Ibid.,  VII.  268;  Percival,  Diary,  III.  349  (memorandum  by  Percival). 

55  Dictionary  of  National  Bibliography,  IV.  109. 

“Ibid.,  I.  371 ;  Nichols,  Literary  Anecdotes,  IX.  491. 


322 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


cussions  of  charity  and  colonization.  Percival  remarked  that 
‘he  knew  the  West  Indies  well,’  and  the  elder  Horace  Walpole 
declared  that  he  was  ‘the  honestest,  the  most  disinterested,  and 
the  most  knowing  person  about  the  plantations,  I  have  ever 
talked  with.’  Already  Coram  was  deeply  concerned  in  his  plan 
for  a  colony  in  the  Maine-Nova  Scotia  region  which  later,  when 
he  fell  out  with  the  ‘Oglethorpians,’  he  sought  to  develop  into  a 
rival  to  Georgia.  Already,  too,  he  was  agitating  for  the  great 
Foundling  Hospital  which  became  and  remains  his  monument. 
It  was  significant  of  the  ramifications  of  the  Georgia  scheme  in 
contemporary  philanthropy  that  the  three  charities  singled  out 
for  special  praise  by  James  Thomson,  the  social  poet,  par  excel¬ 
lence,  of  the  period,  were  Oglethorpe’s  prison  reforms,  the 
founding  of  Georgia,  and  the  creation  of  the  Foundling  Hos¬ 
pital  by  Thomas  Coram,  Associate  and  Trustee.57 

During  the  first  year  after  the  enlargement  of  the  Associates 
the  chairman  was  Oglethorpe,  the  secretaries  were  the  clergy¬ 
men  Smith  and  Bedford.58  But  in  the  second  year  it  appears 
that  a  dual  organization  was  evolving.  Lord  Percival  presided 
at  the  stated  monthly  meetings  ‘of  the  trustees  for  executing 
the  purposes  of  Dr.  Bray’s  and  Mr.  Dalone’s  wills.’59  At  other 
meetings  apparently  Vernon  was  in  the  chair.  But  there  was  not 
yet  a  clear  separation.  Even  after  the  Georgia  charter  had 
passed  the  seals  (June  9,  1732)  the  business  of  the  Associates 
and  the  Trustees  was  for  some  time  jointly  transacted.  At  the 
first  official  meeting  of  the  Trustees  on  July  20,  1732,  the  oaths 
were  administered,  and  laws  for  the  colony  considered ;  and 
Mr.  Purry  attending,  the  Trustees  presented  him,  with  ‘a  small 
library  out  of  Dr.  Bray’s  books,  of  which  we  are  trustees.’60 
May  23,  1733,  the  Trustees  ‘ordered  a  distinct  meeting  of  the 
trustees  of  Dr.  Bray’s  legacy  to-morrow  sennit  at  four  aclock, 
to  consider  of  making  that  part  of  our  trust  a  separate  care 

57  See  references  in  note  23,  and  the  following:  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  XII.  194;  Percival,  Diary,  I.  261;  Coxe,  Walpole  (1798),  III. 
243 ;  C.  A.  Moore  in  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association, 
1916,  pp.  281  f . 

58  Percival,  Diary,  I.  98.  The  index  incorrectly  interprets  this  passage  to 
mean  that  Bundy  and  Hales  were  secretaries. 

59  Ibid.,  p.  273. 

“Ibid.,  p.  286.  See  also  Colonial  Records  of  Georgia,  II.  9,  for  action  on 
the  accounts  of  the  Trustees  and  Associates  in  the  Common  Council,  No¬ 
vember  1,  1732. 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  323 


from  the  Georgia  affair,  our  charter  taking  no  notice  of  it.’61 
This  meeting  of  May  31  was  attended  by  ‘that  part  of  the 
trustees  who  are  concerned  in  the  trust  of  Monsr.  Dalone’s 
legacy  for  instructing  negroes  in  the  Christian  religion,  and  in 
executing  the  purposes  of  Dr.  Bray’s  will  for  settling  parochial 
libraries’  ;  they  applied  to  the  Trustees  for  the  payment  of  the 
balance  due  to  the  religious  trusts,  and  agreed  to  seek  further 
aid  from  the  Earl  of  Thanet’s  legacy.  The  memorial  to  the 
trustees  of  this  fund,  however,  was  signed  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Georgia  Trustees  on  June  6. 62  Formal  separation  soon  fol¬ 
lowed.  But  for  a  long  time  the  Associates  and  the  Trustees 
were  closely  linked  in  personnel.63  The  Associates  held  their 
monthly  meetings  at  the  Georgia  Office;64  annually  down  to 
1750  they  attended,  with  the  Trustees,  the  anniversary  sermons 
in  honor  of  Dr.  Bray;  and  in  1752,  when  the  Trustees  took  an 
inventory  of  their  effects,  books  belonging  to  the  Associates 
were  found  intermingled  with  those  of  the  Georgia  Trust.65 

The  separation  of  these  charities  was  not  accomplished 
without  protest,  and  helped  to  split  the  Trustees  into  two  ill- 
assorted  factions.  In  1734  Captain  Coram  asserted  that  ‘there 
are  not  many  of  those  associates  [i.e.,  Trustees]  who  gives 
themselves  any  Trouble  about  the  other  two  Matters,  but  I  be¬ 
lieve  I  may  venture  to  say  the  better  sort  of  them  do.’66  Vernon 
also  was  critical  of  the  behavior  of  several  of  the  younger 
Trustees.  Heathcote,  White,  Towers,  Hucks,  and  More,  he 
complained  to  Percival,  had  ‘too  little  regard  to  the  religious 
part  of  our  designs.  .  .  .  He  took  it  ill  that  they  separated  the 
Colony  affairs  and  the  members  of  it  from  the  care  of  Mr. 
Dalon’s  legacy  for  converting  the  blacks,  and  Dr.  Bray’s  im¬ 
provement  of  that  design,  of  which  the  others  of  the  Trustees 
for  Georgia  are  Trustees;  with  these  he  put  Mr.  Martin,  our 
secretary,  who  he  thinks  leads  the  gentlemen  I  have  men- 

61  Percival,  Diary,  I.  378-82. 

62  Ibid.,  p.  384. 

63  In  1762  the  thirty-two  Associates  included  Oglethorpe,  Rogers  Hol¬ 
land,  Robert  More,  George  Heathcote,  Adam  Anderson,  Dr.  Burton,  all 
former  Trustees;  and  among  others,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Esq.,  LL.D.,  and 
Samuel  Johnson,  M.  A.  An  Account  of  the  Designs  (1762),  pp.  31,  32,  37. 

64  Percival,  Diary,  III.  256. 

63  Colonial  Records  of  Georgia,  I.  576. 

60  Reference  in  note  24. 


324 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


tioned.’67  But  the  secularization  of  the  Georgia  enterprise  went 
on  apace.  At  a  later  time  practically  all  tradition  of  its  origins 
in  the  activities  of  a  religious  society  was  lost. 

By  such  converging  paths  did  English  benevolence  and  a 
nascent  Anglo-American  ‘imperialism’  combine,  between  1730 
and  1732,  for  the  establishment  of  the  colony  of  Georgia. 
Oglethorpe,  of  course,  was  the  real  founder,  in  the  sense  that 
it  was  he  who  mobilized  the  forces  of  piety  and  charity,  already 
well  developed  in  England  in  the  pre- Wesleyan  epoch,  to 
accomplish  a  task  of  strategic  as  well  as  philanthropic  concern. 

Georgia,  however,  promised  to  realize  the  dreams  of  many 
men ;  hence,  in  part,  its  extraordinary  vogue  in  its  early  years. 
For  several  decades  before  the  Trustees  and  their  literary  sec¬ 
retary  summoned  the  propaganda  forces  of  press,  pamphlet, 
and  poetry  to  extol  their  charitable  and  patriotic  scheme,  the 
region  had  been  advertised  to  the  English  public  by  a  succession 
of  enthusiastic  promoters.  A  larger  significance  attaches  to  the 
work  of  the  Carolina  expansionists.  From  the  time  of  Henry 
Woodward  provincial  explorers  and  traders  had  faced  south¬ 
ward  and  westward,  more  than  half-conscious  of  their  role  as 
advance  agents  of  English  dominion.  For  half-a-century 
Georgia  soil  had  been  traversed  by  the  branching  trading-paths 
from  the  inland  entrepot  at  Savannah  Town.  The  Spanish 
mission  system  had  crumbled;  Guale  and  Tama  had  fallen  easy 
conquests  to  English  trade.  From  its  centres  in  the  Savannah- 
Altamaha  region  the  traffic  for  peltry  and  slaves  had  been 
projected  rapidly  westward  to  the  Mississippi,  southwestward 
to  the  Gulf.  Too  rashly  the  Carolinians  had  aimed  at  the  seizure 
from  France  of  the  whole  fur  trade  of  the  Mississippi  valley. 
The  great  Indian  revolt  of  1715  had  checked  their  first  western 
offensives,  and  had  initiated  a  stiffer  three-cornered  competition 
for  primacy  in  the  South.  It  had  given  new  point  to  fears  of 
French  encirclement  in  North  America,  a  danger  which  south¬ 
ern  leaders,  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  had  been 
among  the  first  to  envisage.  Their  successors  had  now  made  the 
French  menace  the  theme  of  a  persistent,  and,  at  length,  a  suc¬ 
cessful  propaganda  for  royal  government  and  for  a  British 
frontier  policy  of  forts  and  settlements  upon  the  southern  bor- 

67  Diary,  II.  41. 


THE  PHILANTHROPISTS  AND  GEORGIA  325 


ders,  indeed  along  the  whole  western  margin  of  the  sea-board 
colonies.  The  Indian  retreat  from  the  Georgia  region  had 
cleared  the  way  for  the  next  advance  of  colonization.  In  1721 
the  building  of  Fort  King  George  had  staked  out  the  limits  of 
that  advance.  By  1730  the  disappearance  of  the  last  vestige  of 
proprietary  control  had  made  possible  at  length  the  fulfillment 
of  the  Carolinian  policy  of  expansion,  adopted  a  decade  earlier 
by  the  Board  of  Trade.  Of  that  policy,  anti-Spanish,  to  be  sure, 
but  basically  anti-French,  Georgia  became,  after  1732,  the  con¬ 
crete  embodiment. 


APPENDICES 


[  327  ] 


APPENDIX  A 
Exports  of  Peltry,  1698-1765 
Table  I 

Imports  into  Great  Britain  of  beaver  and  deerskins  from  Carolina  and 
Virginia,  Christmas,  1698,  to  Christmas,  1715.1 


From  Virginia 

From  Carolina 

Beaver 

(number) 

Deerskins 

(number) 

Beaver 

(number) 

Deerskins 

(number) 

From 

Christmas, 

1698,  — 

to 

Christmas, 

1699 

2390 

22678 

1436 

64488 

1699  — 

1700 

2104 

24900 

1486 

22133 

1700  — 

1701 

1476 

15107 

451 

51086 

1701  — 

1702 

1063 

18937 

2724 

49646 

1702  — 

1703 

71 

849 

489 

57881 

1703 

1704 

2481 

34387 

540 

61541 

1704  — 

1705 

401 

1958 

25 

10289 

1705  — 

1706 

2679 

24393 

258 

32954 

1706  — 

1707 

526 

12037 

436 

121355 

1707  — 

1708 

590 

2349 

[no  entry] 

31939 

1708  — 

1709 

1621 

28511 

52 

52014 

1709  — 

1710 

491 

7521 

125 

68432 

1710  — 

1711 

8050 

22927 

36 

33409 

1711  — 

1712 

4800 

16230 

314 

80324 

1712  — 

1713 

357 

3019 

242 

60451 

1713  — 

1714 

407 

4952 

533 

50781 

1714  — 

1715 

404 

6843 

694 

55806 

1  Based  on  tables  received  by  the  Board  of  Trade  from  the  Inspector  General’s  office, 
Custom  House,  on  June  19,  1716.  The  Carolina  table  is  in  C.O.  5:1265,  Q  75;  the  Vir¬ 
ginia  table  in  C.O.  5:1317,  P  69.  Ibid.,  P  74,  contains  an  inaccurate  account  of  peltry 
imported  from  Virginia,  1706-1715,  furnished  by  Mr.  Cary. 


[  328  ] 


Table  II 

Exports  of  deerskins  from  South  Carolina,  Christmas,  1715,  to 

Christmas,  1724.1 


Deerskins 

(number) 

From  Christmas,  1715,  to  Christmas,  1716,  . 

4702 

“  ”  1716  ”  ”  1717  . 

21713 

”  ”  1717  ”  ”  1718  . 

17073 

”  ”  1718  ”  ”  1719  . 

24355 

”  ”  1719  ”  ”  1720  . 

35171 

”  ”  1720  ”  ”  1721  . 

33939 

”  ”  1721  ”  ”  1722  . 

59827  2 

”  ”  1722  ”  ”  1723  . 

64315 

”  ”  1723  ”  ”  1724  . 

61124 

ton 


1  From  table  of  South  Carolina  exports  sent  by  Governor  Nicholson  to  Arthur  Middle- 
July  23,  1726  (copy  of  paper  furnished  by  Commissioners  of  Customs);  C.O.  5:387, 


f.  112. 


2  From  JCHA,  January  31,  1724,  it  appears  that  the  duties  arising  on  skins  exported 
January  1,  1722  to  January  1,  1723  were  £1564  9s.  10 (Carolina  currency).  At  6 d. 
per  skin  these  duties  represented  approximately  60,000  deerskins  exported. 


[  329  ] 


Table  III 

Exports  of  deerskins  from  Charles  Town,  November  1,  1724  to 
November  1,  1739. 1 


Chests 

Hogsheads 

Tierces 

Loose  Skins 

From 

November 

1724 

to 

1,  November  1, 
—  1725 

139 

6 

349 

1725 

—  1726 

162 

8 

2390 

1726 

—  1727  2 

115 

21 

1912 

1727 

—  1728  3 4 * 

105 

29 

790 

1728 

—  1729 

119 

46 

1260 

1729 

1730 

126 

59 

2356 

1730 

—  1731 

185 

116 

400 

1731 

—  1732 

40 

240 

580 

1732 

—  1733 

29 

385 

428 

1733 

—  1734 

20 

312 

1140 

1734 

—  1735 

11 

359 

398 

1735 

—  1736 

24 

451 

2009 

1736 

—  1737 

5 

339 

7 

1050 

1737 

—  1738 

441 

15 

1465 

1738 

1739 

559 

856 

September  29,  1726  to  March  25,  1731 
March  25,  1731  to  March  25,  1732  . . . 
March  25,  1732  to  March  25,  1733 
March  25,  1733  to  March  25,  1734 
March  25,  1734  to  March  25,  1735  . . . 
March  25,  1735  to  March  25,  1736. . . . 


Deerskins 

(number) 


[79753] 


[86771] 


[74483] 


[96523] 


[84958] 


[81017] 


Duties 

(currency) 


4  £8972  5s  3d6 


£2169  5s  9d 


£1862  Is  9d 


£2413  Is  6d 


£2123  19s  Od 


£2025  8s  9d 


1  These  statistics  are  taken  from  Port  of  Cliarles-T own  in  South  Carolina,  November 
1,  1737.  An  account  of  sundry  goods  imported,  and  of  sundry  goods  this  province  ex¬ 
ported,  from  the  year  1724,  to  the  year  1735.  Charles  Town:  Lewis  Timothy,  1736, 
(broadside,  BM);  and  from  similar  broadsides  of  1737,  [1738],  [1739],  Unfortunately 
the  accounts  were  kept  by  chests,  hogsheads,  etc.;  but  approximate  totals  for  slightly 
different  periods  (March  25  to  March  25)  may  be  deduced  from  the  records  of  duties 
collected.  These  are  drawn  from  JCHA,  September  20,  1733;  May  22,  1736;  and  January 
21,  1737. 

2  JC,  February  8,  1728/9:  Report  of  state  of  the  province  shows  exports  for  1726- 
1727  of  67247  heavy  deerskins,  13218  light  deerskins. 

3  Ibid.,  1727-1728:  59260  heavy  deerskins,  12103  light  deerskins. 

4  Average  annual  export. 

6  Gross  duties  for  whole  period. 


[  330  ] 


Exports  of  deerskins  from  Charles  Town,  17 39-17 65. 1 


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APPENDIX  B 

Prices  of  Indian  Trading  Goods  (1716-1718). 


Savannah 

Town  (1716) 1 2 3 

Cherokee  (1716)* 

GOODS 

Quantity 

Buck  Skins 
(number) 

Quantity 

Skins 

(number) 

Gun . 

i 

30 

1 

35 

Pistol . 

l 

20 

1 

20 

Powder . 

i  ib. 

“as  you  can” 

1 

Bullets . 

50 

30 

1 

Flints . 

18 

1 

12 

1 

1 

1 

.1 

1 

Hatchet . 

1 

2 

1 

3 

1 

8 

Sword . 

1 

10 

Knife . 

1 

1 

1 

1 

Scissors . 

1  pair 

1 

1 

1  pair 

1 

i 

Axe  . 

4 

5 

Hoe  (narrow) . 

1 

2 

1 

3 

Hoe  (broad) . 

1 

4 

1 

5 

“as  you  can” 
“as  you  can” 

Rum  “mixed  with  1-3  water”.  . . 

i 

3  strings 

l 

2  strings 

i 

Salt 

“as  you  can” 

3 

3 

1  yd. 

1  yd. 

1 

7  4 * 

1  yd. 

8  6 

Plains  or  half-thicks . 

3 

1  yd. 

3 

Duffel  blankets  (white) . 

14  6 

1 

16 

1 

4 

1 

5 

1 

30 

1 

20 

Coat  (double-striped  cloth,  laced) 

1 

8 

1 

12 

1 

i4 

1  yd. 

1 

1 

Red  airdle . 

2 

1 

2 

1JIC,  August  11,  1716:  ‘A  Schedule  of  the  stated  prices  of  the  Goods,  as  they  are 
to  be  disposed  of  to  the  Indians  in  barter.’  . 

2  Ibid.  July  24,  1716:  ‘An  Account  of  the  prices  of  goods  settled  between  Collo. 
James  Moore  and  the  Conjurer,  the  30th  day  of  April  1716  as  they  are  allways  to  be  sold 
to  his  people’  (‘all  skins  to  be  taken  one  with  another’). 

3  Ibid.,  November  29,  1716:  ‘Allowed  to  mix  vermilion  and  red  lead  equally. 

4  Ibid.',  reduced  to  6  skins. 

6  Ibid.,  November  6,  1716,  reduced  to  7  skins. 

6  Ibid.,  September  10,  1717:  on  complaint  of  the  Indians  lowered  to  2  skins  per  yard. 
Other  abatements  at  the  same  time  were:  hatchets,  1  skin;  caddice,  2  skins  for  3  yards; 
‘likewise  in  the  mixture  with  Rum,  a  convenient  proportion.’ 

[  332  ] 


APPENDIX  B 


Prices  of  Indian  Trading  Goods  (1716-1718). 


Settle 

ments  (1718) 7 

Creeks 

(1718) 8 

“Heavy  drest 

“Heavy  drest 

Quantity 

deer  skins” 

Quantity 

Skins” 

Quantity 

“Light” 

(pounds) 

(number) 

(number) 

i 

16 

i 

25 

i 

35 

i 

12 

i 

18 

1  lb. 

i 

i  ib. 

1 

“in  proportion” 

4  lbs. 

l 

40 

1 

30 

1 

50 

i 

20 

1 

15 

1 

1 

2 

2 

1 

1 

7 

1 

10 

1 

4 

i 

6 

1 

2 

1 

3 

1 

3 

1 

4 

1 

6 

1  lb. 

2  K 

24 

1 

1  gal. 

4 

1  lb. 

3 

1  lb.  , 

20 

21bsJM,xed 

1  yd. 

4 

1  yd. 

6 

1  yd. 

9 

1  yd. 

2 

1  yd. 

2 

1  yd. 

3 

1 

8 

2  yds. 

7 

1 

6 

1 

9 

1 

6 

1 

9 

1  yd. 

3 

1 

3 

[Listed, 

no  price] 

1 

20 

1 

30 

1 

14 

1 

14 

1 

21 

1 

16 

1 

18 

1 

27 

1 

12 

1 

12 

1 

18 

1 

3 

[Listed, 

no  price] 

1 

2 

[Listed, 

no  price] 

1  yd. 

4 

3  yds. 

1 

1  Ibid.,  April  23,  1718:  ‘A  Table  of  rates  to  barter  by.’ 

8  Ibid.,  June  3,  1718:  Agreement  with  ‘the  Esqr.  and  several  head  Men  of  the  Indians 
(commonly  called  Creeks).’  Established  as  ‘fixed  rule’  by  resolution  of  same  date. 


[333  ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Contemporary  Sources 


A.  MANUSCRIPTS 

Public  Record  Office 
Colonial  Office  Papers 

C.O.  1:49;  61  (General  series,  1682;  1686-1687). 

C.O.  5:4;  12;  15  (Original  correspondence,  Secretary  of  State, 
1711-1739;  1720-1747;  1754-1755). 

C.O.  5:283  (Observations  on  the  right  of  Great  Britain  to  North 
America,  1739). 

C.O.  5:286  (Lords  Proprietors’  minute  book,  1663-169 7). 

C.O.  5:287;  288  (Lords  Proprietors’  entry  books  of  instructions, 
etc.,  1674-1685;  1682-1698). 

C.O.  5:289;  290  (Copies  of  Lords  Proprietors’  orders  and  in¬ 
structions,  etc.,  1693-1710;  1710-1726,  with  gap  between 
September  4,  1719,  and  April  14,  1724). 

C.O.  5:292  (Lords  Proprietors’  minute  book,  December  3,  1707, 
to  July  1,  1727,  with  gaps  between  July  31,  1719,  and 
January  21,  1725,  and  between  May  12,  1713  and  March 
6,  1714). 

C.O.  5:306  (North  Carolina,  1702-1748). 

C.O.  5:358;  359;  360;  361;  362;  365;  366;  371;  372;  373;  374 
(Board  of  Trade,  original  correspondence,  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  1720-1754). 

C.O.  5:381  (Idem,  drafts  of  letters,  1722-1774). 

C.O.  5:382;  383  (Idem,  miscellaneous,  1699-1724;  1715-1736). 

C.O.  5:387;  388  (Idem,  letters  from  governors,  1715-1729;  1730- 
1746). 

C.O.  5:398  (Abstract  of  grants  of  lands,  1674-1765). 

C.O.  5:400;  401  (Board  of  Trade,  entry  books,  South  Carolina, 

1720- 1730;  1730-1739). 

C.O.  5:406  (Abstracts  of  letters  to  Board  of  Trade  from  South 
Carolina,  1721-1756). 

C.O.  5:412;  413  (South  Carolina  acts,  1721-1727 ;  1731-1734). 

C.O.  5:425  to  433  (Sessional  papers,  South  Carolina,  1721- 
1735). 

C.O.  5:508;  509  (Shipping  returns,  South  Carolina,  1716-1719; 

1721- 1735). 

C.O.  5:855  (New  England,  1689-1691). 

C.O.  5:1081  (New  York,  1689-1690). 

C.O.  5:1258  to  1265;  1268  (Board  of  Trade,  Proprieties,  original 
correspondence,  1699-1720;  1730-1737). 

C.O.  5:1288;  1290  to  1293  (Idem,  entry  books,  1699-1701;  1702- 
1727). 

C.O.  5:1309  to  1312;  1317  (Board  of  Trade,  Virginia,  original 
correspondence,  1696-1702;  1715-1717). 

C.O.  5:1355  (Board  of  Trade,  Virginia,  entry  book,  1675-1682). 

C.O.  5:1409  (Virginia,  sessional  papers,  council,  1693-1702). 

[  335  ] 


336 


THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


C.O.  38:2  (Bermuda,  entry  book,  1686-1690). 

C.O.  323:3;  7;  9;  17  (Board  of  Trade,  Plantations  General, 
original  correspondence,  1699-1703;  1710-1719;  1729- 
1733;  1763-1764). 

C.O.  324:34;  35  (Idem,  entry  books,  1720-1727). 

C.O.  391:1  to  89  (Board  of  Trade  Journal,  etc.,  1675-1782). 
C.O.  391:117  (Board  of  Trade  Journal  and  letter  book,  1719- 
1720,  relating  to  boundary  negotiations  with  France). 
Chancery  Papers 

Chancery  Entry  Book,  1729  B. 

State  Papers 

S.P.  101 :23  (News  letters,  France,  1698). 

S.P.,  Domestic,  Entry  Book  238. 

Shaftesbury  Papers 
Bundle  48 
British  Museum 

Additional  MSS  6194;  22680;  32739;  35909  (Hardwicke  Papers, 
DLXI). 

Sloane  MSS  4036;  4051. 

Somerset  House 
P.C.C.,  55  Auber. 

Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts 
S.P.G.  MSS  A,  I;  II,  no.  156. 

S.P.G.  MSS  B,  IV,  parts  1  and  2;  V,  no.  257. 

Bodleian  Library 

Rawlinson  MSS  A,  271 ;  C,  943;  D  834,  839. 

Maggs  Brothers,  London 

Price  Hughes  MSS  (five  letters,  circa  1712-1713). 

Archives  Nationales,  Colonies* 

C11,  A  20. 

Ci3,  A  1  to  A  13. 

03°,  1,  2. 

F3,  8. 

Archives  Nationales,  Marine* 

B1,  8,  9. 

B2,  136,  153,  167,  168,  177,  182,  183,  187. 

B*,  29. 

Archives  des  Affaires  fitrangeres* 

Espagne,  153,  154,  163. 

Bibliotheque  Nationale* 

Nouvelles  acquisitions  9294,  9301. 

South  Carolina  state  archives.  Office  of  the  Historical  Commission  of 
South  Carolina,  Columbia,  S.  C.  (See  Report,  1906). 

Journals  of  the  Grand  Council,  1671-1692. 

Council  Journals  (originals  and  copies),  1717,  1721-1775. 

*  French  documents  in  these  archives  are  cited  from  transcripts  in  the  I 
Library  of  Congress  or  in  my  possession.  See  N.  M.  Miller  (ed.),  Calendar 
of  Manuscripts  in  Paris  Archives  and  Libraries  relating  to  the  History  of  1 
the  Mississippi  Valley  to  1803,  I  (1581-1739),  Washington:  Carnegie  Insti¬ 
tution  of  Washington,  1926. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


337 


Journals  of  the  Commons  House  of  Assembly  (originals  and  copies), 
1682- [1738]. 

Journals  of  the  Indian  Commissioners  (originals),  September  20, 
1710  to  April  12,  1715;  July  4,  1716  to  August  29,  1718.  (These 
so-called  ‘Indian  Books,’  with  similar  journals  and  documents, 
1749-1765,  constitute  a  mine  of  material,  largely  unexploited, 
comparable  to  the  New  York  Indian  records.) 

Court  of  Ordinary  Records,  1672-1692. 

Transcripts  of  South  Carolina  documents  in  the  Public  Record  Of¬ 
fice  (Sainsbury  transcripts),  I-XVI  (1663-1734). 

Library  of  Congress,  Manuscripts  Division. 

Archdale,  John.  MSS  relating  to  the  Carolinas.  (Formerly  Roberts 
collection  in  custody  of  Haver  ford  College). 

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British  Museum,  S.P.G.,  Bodleian  Library,  Fulham  Palace,  etc. 

Brooks  transcripts  and  translations  of  documents  in  the  Archives  of 
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Virginia  Council  Minutes,  1698-1700. 

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391:1-89,  117);  Board  of  Trade,  Proprieties  (now  C.O.  5:1257- 
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[Here  are  included  contemporary  imprints,  and  also  later  edi¬ 
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THE  SOUTHERN  FRONTIER 


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Narratives,  pp.  269-76.  See  editor’s  estimate  of  credibility,  ibid.,  p. 
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[Barcia,  Andres  Gonzalez].  Ensayo  cronologico,  para  la  historia 
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Barnwell,  John.  ‘Fort  King  George.  Journal  of  Col.  John  Barnwell 
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Bentham,  Edward.  De  vita  et  moribus  Johannis  Burtoni.  Oxford, 
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A  Description  of  South  Carolina.  See  James  Glen. 

Dickenson,  Jonathan.  God’s  Protecting  Providence,  Man’s  Surest 
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‘Documents  concernant  l’histoire  des  Indiens  de  la  region  orientale  de 
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Gascoyn  and  R[obert  Greene],  [1682],  JCB.  (Abbreviated  from 
R.F.,  The  Present  State,  apparently  to  accompany  the  Gascoyne 
map.) 

The  Unwritten  History  of  Old  St.  Augustine.  Copied  from  the  Spanish 
archives  in  Seville,  Spain,  by  Miss  A.  M.  Brooks  and  translated  by 
Mrs.  Annie  Averette.  [St.  Augustine?],  [1909?]. 

V illiers,  Baron  Marc  de.  See  ‘Documents  concernant  l’histoire  des 
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and  others.  Richmond,  1875-1893.  11  vols. 

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[Wilson,  Samuel].  An  Account  of  the  Province  of  Carolina  in 
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Yonge,  Francis.  A  Narrative  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  People  of 
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in  Carroll,  ed.,  Collections,  II,  141-92.) 

[Yonge,  Francis].  A  View  of  the  Trade  of  South-Carolina,  with  Pro¬ 
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C.  MAPS 

Lederer,  John.  Map  accompanying  The  Discoveries  of  John  Lederer 
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Gascoyne,  Joel.  A  New  Map  of  the  Country  of  Carolina.  London, 
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‘Plat  of  the  Province  of  Carolina  in  North  America,  the  South 
part  Actually  Surveyed  by  Mr.  Maurice  Mathews.’  [Circa 
1685].  MS.  BM.  Add.  MSS  5414,  roll  24. 

Wells,  Phillip.  [Map  of  North  America  from  Canada  to  Honduras]. 
1686.  MS.  BM.  Add.  MSS  5414,  roll  19  (originally  Sloane  MSS 
3278,  roll  27).  (Large  map,  important  as  indicating  English  notions 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


349 


of  the  West  following  La  Salle’s  discoveries.  Shows  ‘The  River 
O  Hio’  flowing  into  ‘Bahia  del  Spieritto  Santo/  described  as  ‘The 
River  which  Monseir  Lasall  found  out  Runing  in  the  Bay  of 
Mexico.’  Helps  to  illuminate  geographical  ideas  of  Coxe,  who  may 
have  seen  it  in  possession  of  his  friend  Sloane.) 

Franquelin,  Jean  Baptiste  Louis.  ‘Carte  de  l’Amerique  septentri- 
onnalle.’  1688.  MS,  Bibl.  Nat.  MSS  4040  B,  6  bis.  Photostat  in 
WLC. 

Jones,  Cadwallader.  ‘Pars  Louissiania.’  1699.  MS.  P.R.O.,  C.O. 
5:1310,  p.  261.  Reproduced  in  Virginia  Magazine  of  History  and 
Biography,  XXX  (1922),  opposite  p.  3 37. 

Louvigny,  De  la  Porte  de.  ‘Carte  du  fleuve  Missisipi.’  [Circa  1699.] 
MS.  Bibl.  Nat.  MSS  4040  C,  10.  Photostat  in  WLC.  (From  ‘5  vil¬ 
lages]  des  sicaca’  indicates  “chemin  pour  aller  aux  anglois.’) 

Delisle,  Guillaume.  ‘Carte  des  environs  du  Mississipi  .  .  .  donne 
par  M.  d’Iberville  en  1701.’  [1701  or  1702],  MS.  Bibl.  du  Depart, 
de  la  Marine.  Photograph  in  LC.  (Notable  for  early  representation 
of  Carolina  trading  path.) 

Delisle,  Guillaume.  Carte  du  Mexique  et  de  la  Floride.  1703.  JCB. 

Crisp,  Edward.  A  Compleat  Description  of  the  Province  of  Carolina. 
London,  [1711?].  LC.  CO.  (C.O.  Maps,  Carolina,  2.)  (Second  in¬ 
set  :  ‘A  map  of  South  Carolina  shewing  the  Settlements  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish,  French  &  Indian  nations  from  Charles  Town  to  the  River 
Missisipi  by  Capt.  Tho.  Nairn’:  a  crude  map  based  upon  the  Nairne 
manuscript  map  of  1708  which  has  disappeared,  but  of  interest  for 
the  inclusive  boundaries  of  Carolina.  With  alterations  in  the  plate 
this  served  in  1732  as  the  so-called  ‘first  map  of  Georgia.’  See  my 
Promotion  Literature,  p.  10  note  20.) 

Hughes,  Price.  ‘A  Map  of  the  Country  adjacent  to  the  River  Misisipi.’ 
[Circa  1713],  Copied,  circa  1720,  by  Alexander]  S[potswood], 
MS.  CO.  (C.O.  Maps,  Virginia,  2.)  (See  Spotswood,  Letters,  II, 
331.  A  sketch  map  of  the  region  from  Charles  Town  to  the  Illinois 
country,  the  Missouri,  Rocky  Mountains,  and  Texas.  Not  detailed, 
but  of  extraordinary  interest  in  view  of  date  and  authorship.) 

Moll,  Herman.  A  New  and  Exact  Map  of  the  Dominions  of  the  King 
of  Great  Britain  on  the  Continent  of  North  America  .  .  .  [dedi¬ 
cated]  to  the  honourable  Walter  Douglas,  Esqr.  1715.  JCB.  (Inserts 
of  Crisp-Nairne  maps.  Accords  extraordinarily  generous  bounds  to 
French,  as  do  most  English  engraved  maps  of  the  period,  following 
the  Delisle  tradition.) 

‘Map  of  Carolina,  shewing  the  route  of  the  forces  sent  in  .  .  .  1711, 
1712,  and  1713,  from  South  Carolina  for  the  relief  of  North  Caro¬ 
lina,  and  in  1715  .  .  .  from  North  Carolina  to  the  assistance  of 
South  Carolina.’  [post  1715],  MS.  (C.O.  Maps,  Carolina,  4.)  CC, 
Series  III,  17,  18. 

Le  Maire,  [Francois],  ‘Carte  nouvelle  de  la  Louisiane  et  pais  cir- 
convoisins.’  1716.  MS.  Bibl.  Nat.,  MSS  4044  C,  46.  Photostat  in 
WLC. 

Delisle,  Guillaume.  Carte  de  la  Louisiane  et  du  cours  du  Mississipi. 
Dressee  sur  un  grande  nombre  de  memoires  entr’  autres  sur  ceaux 


350 


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de  M.  le  Maire.  Paris,  1718.  (A  notable  map,  but  of  little  interest 
for  eastern  Louisiana  except  in  its  inclusive  French  boundaries. 
Shows  route  of  Tonti,  1702.) 

[Map  of  North  and  South  Carolina  and  Louisiana],  [Circa  1708-1720], 
MS.  CO.  (C.O.  Maps,  Carolina,  3.)  CC,  Series  III.  13-16.  (A  beau¬ 
tiful  MS  map,  perhaps  engraver’s  copy  for  Moll,  1720,  but  more 
detailed.  Evidently  based  upon  Nairne,  1708.  Inaccurate  copy  in 
S wanton,  Early  History,  plate  3.) 

Moll,  Herman.  A  New  Map  of  the  North  Parts  of  America  claimed 
by  France.  1720.  JCB.  (Among  sources  cited  are  Delisle,  1718, 
Richard  Berresford,  and  Thomas  Nairne.  See  chapter  iv,  p.  9.) 

La  Harpe,  Benard  de.  [Map  of  Louisiana  and  the  Mississippi].  [Circa 
1720],  MS,  LC.  Section  reproduced  in  color  in  D.  I.  Bushnell,  Jr., 
Native  Villages  and  Village  Sites  (1919),  frontispiece. 

[Barnwell,  John],  ‘A  Map  or  Plan  of  the  Mouth  of  the  Alatamahaw 
River  with  the  Adjacent  Lands.’  [Circa  1721],  MS.  CO.  (C.O. 
Maps,  Georgia,  1.) 

[Map  of  the  location  of  Altamaha  Fort  with  inset  of]  ‘the  front 
of  Alatama  plank’d  house.’  August  29,  1721.  MS.  CO.  (C.O. 
Maps,  Georgia,  2.) 

‘A  Chart  of  St.  Simon’s  Harbour.’  September  2,  1721.  MS.  CO. 
(C.O.  Maps,  Georgia,  3.) 

‘A  Plan  of  King  George’s  Fort  at  Allatamaha,  South  Carolina, 
latitude  31°  12'  north.  [1721],  MS.  CO  (C.  O.  Maps,  Georgia, 
4.)  CC,  Series  III,  132. 

[Plan  of  Fort  King  George].  August,  1722.  MS.  CO.  (C.O.  Maps, 
Georgia,  5.)  CC,  Series  III,  133,  134. 

The  Ishnography  or  Plan  of  Fort  King  George.’  [1722?].  MS.  CO. 

(C.O.  Maps,  Georgia,  7.)  CC,  Series  III,  135,  136. 

[Plan  of  Fort  King  George  and  environs].  [1722].  MS.  CO.  (C.O. 
Maps,  Georgia,  8.)  CC,  III,  137. 

[Map  of  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Azilia,  Florida,  Carolana, 
Louisiana,  and  the  southern  Indian  country],  [Circa  1721-1727]. 
MS.  CO.  (C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  7).  (A  notable  map,  based 
on  reports  of  Indian  agents,  Indian  ‘censuses,’  etc. :  the  first  detailed 
English  map  of  the  southern  frontier  extant.  Influenced  strongly 
Popple,  1733,  Mitchell,  1755,  etc.  Cf.  C.O.  Maps,  Florida,  2.) 

‘A  Map  Describing  the  Situation  of  the  several  Nations  of  Indians  be¬ 
tween  South  Carolina  and  the  Massisipi  River ;  was  copyed  from  a 
Draught  drawn  upon  a  Deer  Skin  by  an  Indian  Casique  and  pre¬ 
sented  to  Francis  Nicholson,  Esq.,  Governour  of  Carolina.’  [Circa 
1725],  MS.  CO.  (C.O.  Maps,  N.A.C.  General,  6.)  CC,  Series  III, 
7,  8.  A  smaller  copy  (B.M.  Add.  MSS  4723)  is  reproduced  in  CC, 
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Plan  of  Fort  George.  1726.  MS.  P.R.O.,  M.P.,  G  13. 

Hunter,  George.  [Map  of  the  Cherokee  Nation  and  the  traders’  path 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 


351 


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D’Anville,  ******.  Carte  de  la  Louisiane  .  .  .  dressee  en  mai  173,2. 
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Haig,  George.  [Map  of  the  Cherokee  towns  and  the  up-country  of 
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INDEX 


INDEX 


Abeca,  Abecau.  See  Abihka 
Abihka  (or  Coosa)  Indians  (Upper 
Creeks),  23,  39,  46,  82,  83  n.,  104, 
169,  257,  268 ;  numbers  and  loca¬ 
tion,  135 

Abihkutci,  Upper  Creek  town,  135 
Achitia,  164  n. 

Acolapissa  Indians,  46,  67,  105 
Adair,  James,  Indian  trader  and  his¬ 
toriographer,  124;  quoted,  125-6, 
127,  135,  261 

Adrian,  Apalache  chief,  258 
Aequite,  164  n. 

Africa,  4,  215,  219 
Agents,  colonial,  177,  198,  210,  213; 
and  western  policy,  208-9,  218- 
20,  228-34;  instructions  to,  287-8. 
See  also  Barnwell,  Berresford, 
Boone,  Kettleby,  Yonge 
Agents,  Indian,  89,  92,  95,  98,  201-2, 
267,  271-2;  functions,  150-2;  juris¬ 
diction,  166 
Agrarian  Laws,  139 
Alabama  Fort.  See  Fort  Toulouse 
Alabama  Indians  (Upper  Creeks), 
relations  with  French,  23,  70,  78, 
82,  83,  85,  95,  97,  104,  255-6 ;  rela¬ 
tions  with  English,  46,  82,  85,  88, 
96,  104-5,  151,  169,  259,  265,  268; 
numbers  and  location,  135 ;  and 
Chickasaw,  136,  273 
Alabama  River,  46,  102,  135,  257,  261 
Albany,  fur  trade  of,  50,  63,  109, 
136;  councils,  177 
Albemarle  Sound,  3,  5 
Albemarle,  Duke  of,  Proprietor,  118 
Alford,  James,  Chickasaw  trader, 
181 

Alibamons.  See  Alabama 
Allen,  Andrew,  merchant,  121 
Altamaha,  Yamasee  chief,  25 
Altamaha,  Yamasee  town,  151,  164 
and  -n.,  255 

Altamaha  Fort.  See  Fort  King 
George 

Altamaha  River,  Indians  of,  36, 
133,  178,  190;  as  boundary  (of 
Carolana),  58,  (of  Azilia),  210, 
(of  Carolina),  252;  fortification 
of,  191,  230,  232-3,  245,  248,  251, 
261;  French  designs  on,  227,  229, 
261 ;  Anglo-Spanish  disputes  over, 
236,  238-45,  249,  251-3;  proposed 
settlement  of,  264,  282,  294 


Alvord,  Clarence  W.,  viii 
Amelia  Island,  26 
Amy,  Thomas,  Proprietor,  142 
Anderson,  Adam,  Associate  and 
Trustee,  320  321,  323  n. 

Andrews,  C.  M.,  on  Azilia,  210  n. 
Anglo-French  rivalry,  ix,  4,  22,  47, 
63-107,  167,  185-6,  206-9,  211-12, 
220-34,  238,  254-76,  281-2,  285, 
303,  324-5 ;  continental  phase,  60, 
63,  67,  71 

Anglo-Spanish  rivalry,  3,  7-11,  17-18, 
22-6,  30-3,  64-5,  73-81,  86-8,  167, 
185,  217-8,  222-3,  227,  238-53,  257- 
61,  265,  267-72,  288,  324;  in  the 
Caribbean,  5,  11;  subordinate  to 
Anglo-French  rivalry,  71,  75,  77- 
8,  212,  233-4,  303,  325 
Annapolis  Royal,  235,  291 
Annarea,  projected  colony  of,  103 
Anne,  Queen,  83,  92,  10C  103  n. 
Apalache,  mission  province,  7,  8-9, 
24,  35,  73-5,  133,  179,  258;  cam¬ 
paigns  in,  75,  78-82,  86,  133 ;  Eng¬ 
lish  occupation  proposed,  94,  223. 
Apalache  Bay,  55,  230,  255 
Apalache  Indians,  8-9,  70;  Spanish 
allies,  73,  74,  78,  86;  conquest, 
79-81;  near  Mobile,  86;  in  South 
Carolina,  88,  128,  187 ;  in  Yamasee 
War,  170,  173,  180-1 ;  dispersion, 
254-5 ;  at  San  Marcos,  258 
Apalache  River,  9,  212 
Apalachicola,  Spanish  province  of, 
34-6,  38,  45,  244,  254,  258;  Lower 
Creek  town,  134,  255,  268,  269, 
271.  See  also  Cherokeeleechee ; 
Palachacola  Old  Town 
Apalachicola  Indians.  See  Creeks, 
Lower 

Apalachicola  River,  17,  23,  55,  56 
Appalachian  Mountains,  3,  15,  16, 
30,  40,  44,  135,  206,  225 
Apple  Tree  Creek,  129 
Appomatox  Indians,  21 
Arachi,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Aranguiz,  governor  of  Florida,  6 
Archdale,  John,  Proprietor,  gov¬ 
ernor  of  Carolina,  37-9,  45,  109, 
143  n.,  145 
Argoud,  Sieur,  48 
Argiielles,  Captain  Alanso,  6 


[  359  ] 


360 


INDEX 


Arkansas  Indians,  43,  46,  90.  See  also 
Quapavv 

Arkansas  River,  43,  46 
Arredondo,  Antonio,  9  n.,  240-1 
Arriola,  56,  86 

Artaguiette,  Diron  de,  91,  135  n. 
Arthur,  Gabriel,  viii,  15 
Artillery  Ground,  London,  Chero¬ 
kee  at,  296 

Asao,  25,  238.  See  also  St.  Simon’s 
Island 

Ash,  John,  145 

Ashe,  Edward,  of  Board  of  Trade, 
on  gaols  committee,  312  n.,  318 
Ashe,  Thomas,  quoted,  111,  118 
Ashepoo,  137 

Ashley,  Lord.  See  Shaftesbury 
Ashley  River,  3,  10,  13,  16,  118,  172 
Assembly.  See  South  Carolina 
Associates  of  Dr.  Bray,  origin,  306 ; 
membership,  306,  320-2  and  notes', 
and  Berkeley,  306-7 ;  and  gaols 
committees,  308,  314;  and  Geor¬ 
gia,  308,  314,  317-24;  enlargement 
of,  312-14,  316-19;  minute  of, 
319  k.;  separation  from  Georgia 
Trust,  322-3 

Atali,  Cherokee  dialect,  131 
Atasi,  Lower  Creek  town,  134 
Atkin,  Edmund  and  John,  mer¬ 
chants,  121 

Augusta  (Georgia),  and  Indian 
trade,  108,  124,  129,  132,  187 
Axes,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  117,  332 
Ayala,  Juan  de,  258 
Ayubale,  Apalache  mission,  de¬ 
stroyed,  79 

Azilia,  Margravate  of,  viii,  210-13, 
214,  228-9,  234,  281,  285.  See  also 
Golden  Islands;  Montgomery 

Bahama  Channel,  control  of,  10, 
239 

Bahamas,  60,  184,  209,  231,  251, 
309  n. 

Baie  St.  Joseph,  261 
Baie  St.  Louis,  263 
Baltimore,  Lord,  208 
Bambridge,  Thomas,  312 
Barbados,  Carolina  colonists  from, 
3,  5,  11,  28 

Barda,  Andres  Gonzalez,  chronicler, 

25 

Barker,  Captain,  death  of,  172 
Barnwell,  John,  Florida  campaigns 
of,  81 ;  expansionist,  94,  103 ;  in 
Tuscarora  War,  96,  158-60;  Irish¬ 
man.  163;  loses  offices,  163;  Port 
Royal  settler,  163,  169 ;  commands 


southern  scouts,  170,  190,  236; 
Indian  commissioner,  194 ;  pro¬ 
poses  Virgina  trade  conference, 
203-4;  and  Azilia,  213-14;  mission 
to  England,  218-20,  228-34,  288  n. ; 
frontier-post  program,  220,  229, 
231,  241,  254,  261,  281,  294,  315; 
on  Coxe,  226;  Nicholson’s  eulogy 
of,  229  n. ;  and  British  western 
policy,  231-4;  builds  Fort  King 
George,  235-7 ;  advocates  fort  qn 
St.  Simon’s,  237,  251 ;  and  Huspaw 
King,  264  n. ;  and  township  scheme, 
282,  292 

Barnwell,  Fort,  159 

Baronies,  in  Yamasee  tract,  216; 

offered  to  Purry,  286 
Barons,  Samuel,  London  merchant, 
opposes  public-trade  act,  198 
Barton,  Thomas,  194  n. 

Bartram,  William,  on  Okmulgee 
fields,  36,  133;  on  Cherokee 

country,  130-1 

Basire,  Isaac,  engraver,  frontispiece, 
296  n„  297  n. 

Batavia,  Purry  in,  283-4 
Bath  (North  Carolina),  relieved  by 
Barnwell,  159 
Batts,  Thomas,  viii,  15 
Bayagoula  Indians,  105 
Baye  de  Carlos  (Tampa  Bay),  71 
Beads,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Beale,  merchant,  121 
Beaufort,  165,  189,  220,  236,  248 
Beaufort  county,  164  n. 

Beaufort,  Duke  of,  Proprietor,  208 
Beaufort  Fort,  189 
Beaver,  109,  111  and  n.,  195,  328 
Bedford,  Rev.  Arthur,  Associate, 
321-2 

Bedlam,  London,  Cherokee  visit,  296 
Bedon,  Henry  and  Stephen,  mer¬ 
chants,  121 

Bee,  John,  merchant  and  Indian 
trader,  108,  121,  264  m.,  265;  fac¬ 
tory  of,  121,  191 
Begon,  Michel,  104 
Belitha,  William,  Associate  and 
Trustee,  306,  320  n.,  321 
Bellefeuille,  courcur  de  bois,  66,  70, 
90 

Bellinger,  Edmund,  Landgrave,  164  n. 
Bellinger,  William,  189 
Bellomont.  Earl  of,  and  western 
trade,  62-3,  65,  100 
Benavides  Bazan,  Antonio,  governor 
of  Florida,  and  boundary  dispute, 
238-9,  241-4 


INDEX 


361 


Berkeley,  George,  Bermuda  scheme 
of,  306-8,  314 

Berkeley,  Sir  William,  Proprietor, 
governor  of  Virginia,  promotes 
exploration,  4,  14 
Berkeley  county,  garrisons  in,  172 
Bermuda,  10,  32,  306-7 
Berne  (Switzerland),  283,  286 
Berresford,  Richard,  reduces  Savan¬ 
nahs,  148 ;  Indian  commissioner, 
ISO;  colonial  agent,  177,  208,  228; 
memorial  on  French  menace 
(1717),  209,  222,  223 
Bertie,  James,  216,  219  n.,  289 
Bienville,  Jean  Baptiste  le  Moyne, 
sieur  de,  stops  Captain  Bond,  57 ; 
and  Indian  affairs,  67,  69,  83-4, 
89,  95,  97,  255-6,  260;  aids  Pensa¬ 
cola,  88;  opposes  English,  89,  91, 
96,  105-7,  273-4;  quarrel  with 

Cadillac,  98,  105,  256;  examina¬ 
tion  of  Hughes,  106;  succeeds 
Lespinay,  260;  sends  Chateaugue 
to  build  Fort  de  Crevecoeur,  261 ; 
takes  Pensacola,  262;  recalled,  273 
Biloxi,  48,  67,  68 

Blackleech,  Solomon,  license  to 
trade  in  Guale,  25  n. 

Black  River,  194,  293-4 
Bladen,  Martin,  of  Board  of  Trade, 
boundary  commissioner,  224-6;  on 
gaols  committees,  311,  318 
Blake,  Lady  Elizabeth,  173 
Blake,  Joseph,  Proprietor,  deputy- 
governor,  Indian  trade  magnate, 
24,  38,  45,  141-2,  225 ;  expansion¬ 
ist,  24,  38,  45,  63,  64-5,  73,  94, 
186;  death,  66;  and  regulation, 
141-2 

Blakeney,  Major,  factor,  194 
Blakiston,  Nathaniel,  endorses  Azilia, 
212 

Blankets,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Blathwayt,  William,  of  Board  of 
Trade,  and  mining  project,  43; 
and  Hennepin,  52 

Blue  Ridge  Mountains,  14,  130; 

search  for  pass,  61,  177 
Board,  Indian.  See  Indian  commis¬ 
sioners 

Board  of  Ordnance,  235 
Board  of  Trade  and  Plantations, 
and  Couture,  44,  60 ;  and  Caro- 
lana,  57-9,  225-7 ;  and  Indian 
trade,  62-4,  143,  155-7 ;  and  Vir¬ 
ginia-South  Carolina  controver¬ 
sies,  155-7,  175,  177,  204;  and 
Ya.masee  War,  167,  206-7 ;  and 
western  policy,  186,  220,  223-33, 


281,  294,  303;  and  Proprietors, 
207,  218-20,  290;  and  Azilia,  212, 
214;  on  boundaries  and  Fort  King 
George,  224-7,  232-3,  240-1,  251-3; 
and  southern  colonization,  251, 
281,  285,  291,  318,  325;  instruc¬ 
tions  to  Robert  Johnson,  291-4; 
treaty  with  Cherokee,  298-302 ;  and 
gaols  committees,  311,  318 
Bocachee,  of  Coweta,  257 
Bocas  de  Talaje,  238 
Boisbriant,  Pierre  Duque  de,  84,  274 
Bolton,  Herbert  E.,  ix,  36  n. 

Bond,  Captain,  and  the  Carolana  ex¬ 
pedition,  56-7 

Bonds,  required  of  Indian  traders, 
153,  202-3 

Boone,  John,  planter  and  slave- 
dealer,  19,  138 

Boone,  Joseph,  merchant  and  colo¬ 
nial  agent,  173,  177,  198,  208,  213, 
214 

Bonrepaus,  M.,  French  minister  at 
the  Hague,  and  Hennepin,  53,  56 
Borough  Compter,  Bray  and,  310 
Boston,  114,  173 
Boston  News  Letter,  114  and  n. 
Boundaries,  Carolina-Florida,  3,  9, 
10-11,  30,  33,  37-9,  237-42,  246; 
“Observations”  (1723),  240-1;  ne¬ 
gotiations  (1725),  242-5;  and 

Treaty  of  Seville,  251-3 
Boundaries,  Carolina-Louisiana, 
Nairne  on,  93-4;  and  Treaty  of 
Utrecht,  97-8;  Bienville  on,  106-7; 
and  negotiations  (1719),  224-7; 
forts  proposed  to  establish,  229- 
30;  Carolinian  claims,  230 
Bourbons,  68,  71 
Bowdler,  Captain  John,  252 
Bowling  Green  House,  traders  fre¬ 
quent,  108 

Bows  and  arrows,  12,  74,  117 
Boyano,  Hernando,  Spanish  ex¬ 
plorer,  8,  39 

Boyd,  James,  on  western  trade,  63-4 
Bray,  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas,  circle  of, 
287 ;  leader  of  religious  philan¬ 
thropic  movement,  303-4 ;  and  re¬ 
ligious  societies,  304;  in  Maryland, 
304 ;  and  parochial  libraries,  305, 
318 ;  and  conversion  of  negroes 
and  Indians,  305-6,  308 ;  opposes 
Berkeley,  307-8  ;  Missionalia,  308 ; 
and  Purry,  308 ;  and  Coram,  309, 
318 ;  and  debtor  colony  scheme, 
309,  317-18;  will  of,  308  n.,  310 
316,  317,  318  and  n.,  323;  and  pris¬ 
ons,  310;  and  King  legacy,  316; 


362 


INDEX 


and  Oglethorpe,  316-7 ;  death  of, 
318;  anniversary  sermons,  320, 
323.  See  also  Associates  of  Dr. 
Bray 

Bray,  William,  trader,  168 
Brest  (France),  56,  64,  262 
Bridgewater,  Earl  of,  and  mining 
project,  43 

Brims,  Emperor,  of  Coweta,  and 
English,  95-6,  257-8,  265,  268 ;  and 
Yamasee  War,  169,  181 ;  neutral 
policy  of,  185,  258,  259-61,  271; 
and  Spanish,  258,  259,  269 ;  and 
French,  260 

Britt,  William,  Creek  trader,  127 
Broad  River,  164 

Brooksbank,  Stamp,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  311m. 

Broughton,  Captain  Nathaniel,  181 
Broughton,  Colonel  Thomas,  In¬ 
dian  trade  magnate,  92,  120,  121, 
143,  147 ;  lieutenant-governor,  123 
Brown,  Patrick,  Creek  trader,  127 
Bubbles,  colonization,  213,  219,  226, 
303 

Buckskins,  111,  332 
Buffalo,  70,  112 

Bull,  Colonel  Stephen,  and  Tala- 
poosas,  74,  144  n. ;  planter-trader, 
120,  155  m. 

Bull,  Captain  William,  180 
Bull,  Rev.  William  Tredwell,  on 
causes  of  Yamasee  War,  166-7 
and  n. 

Bullets,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  195, 
332 

Bundy,  Rev.  Richard,  Associate  and 
Trustee,  321  and  n. 

Burdeners,  Indian,  108,  127-8,  165-6, 
194-5 

Burgesses,  House  of.  See  Virginia 
Burnet,  William,  governor  of  New 
York,  on  Niagara,  232 
Burton,  Rev.  Dr.  Tohn,  Associate 
and  Trustee,  321  and  n.,  323  n. 
Byng,  Robert,  on  gaols  committee, 
311  M. 

Byrchall,  Captain,  229  m. 

Byrd,  William,  the  elder,  Virginia 
planter-trader,  119,  154 
Byrd,  William,  of  Westover,  on  Vir¬ 
ginia  Indian  trade,  119,  126,  154; 
on  Yamasee  War,  206;  on  Berke¬ 
ley’s  scheme,  307 
Byth,  Upper  Creek  trader,  225-6 

Cabrera,  Juan  Marques,  governor  of 
Florida,  and  Guale  Indians,  25 ; 


attacks  Carolina,  30-1,  32;  rein¬ 
forces  Apalache,  35-6 
Caddice,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Cadillac,  La  Mothe,  governor  of 
Louisiana,  correspondence  with 
Craven,  98,  104;  quarrels  with 
Bienville,  98;  and  Hughes,  99, 
104-5;  postpones  building  Alabama 
Fort,  256 

Caesar  of  Echota,  Cherokee  chief, 
179,  181,  183,  196 
Calico,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Campbell,  Sir  James,  and  Cardross, 

27 

Campbell,  John,  on  gaols  committee, 
312  n. 

Campbell,  John,  Chickasaw  trader, 

125 

Campeche,  94,  251 
Canada,  49,  56,  66,  74,  77,  104,  109; 
communication  with  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  59,  63,  208,  221,  222,  230 
Canadians,  70,  72,  82,  97,  109 
Canoes,  128 

Cantey,  Captain  John,  160,  181 
Cape  Breton,  232 

Cape  Fear,  3,  5,  120;  Indians,  170, 
191 

Cape  Florida,  57,  96 

Caravans,  in  Indian  trade,  61,  108, 

126 

Card,  trader,  127 

Cardross,  Henry  Erskine,  Lord,  or¬ 
ganises  Scottish  colony,  25.  27 ; 
patent,  27;  plants  Stuart’s  Town, 

28  and  n.,  281 ;  and  Indian  trade, 
28  and  n.,  29-30,  211;  controversy 
with  Charles  Town,  28-30;  arrests 
Edenburgh  and  Woodward,  29-30, 
34 ;  incites  raids  in  Florida,  30 ; 
his  colony  destroyed,  31 ;  prom¬ 
ised  redress  by  Proprietors,  32 

Caribbean,  4,  7.  9,  11 
Carlton,  Lord,  219  n.,  289 
Carolana-Florida,  patent  acquired 
by  Coxe,  50;  title  to,  51,  57-9,  225- 
7 ;  advertisements  of,  53-4,  55 ; 
Huguenot  colonists  for,  54-5 ; 
French  alarm  at,  56;  expedition 
to,  56-7;  Board  of  Trade  and, 
57-9,  225-7 ;  failure  of,  59 ;  De¬ 
scription,  226;  and  Georgina,  285 
Carolina,  as  a  border  colony,  3-4; 
charters  of,  4,  9,  207-8,  252,  290- 
1 ;  failure  of  early  settlements,  5 ; 
coast  explored,  5-6 ;  advantages 
for  explorations,  14-15;  Shaftes¬ 
bury  plans  asylum  in,  20 ;  plans 
for  conquest  of,  71-2,  86-7;  Gee 


INDEX 


363 


on,  315;  as  site  of  debtor  colony, 
318.  See  also  South  Carolina 
Carolina,  ship,  10 

Carolina  Coffee  House,  London, 
211  297 

Carolina  Galley,  in  Mississippi,  57 
Carolina  Merchant,  28 
Carpenter,  George,  Associate  and 
Trustee,  320  n. 

Carteret,  John,  Lord,  Proprietor, 
208,  289,  290;  Secretary  of  State, 
239,  240,  283 

Cary,  Mr.,  on  Virginia  Indian  trade, 
157,  328  n. 

Casquinampogamou  (Tennessee 
River),  42 

Cat  Island  (Bahamas),  Coram  and, 
309  n. 

Catatoga,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Catawba  Indians,  trade  with  Vir¬ 
ginia,  13  and  n.,  154,  155  n.,  196-7, 
205 ;  first  contacts  with,  13 ;  path 
to,  129,  188;  aid  against  Tuscarora, 
160;  in  Yamasee  War,  170,  176, 
181,  184;  public  trade  with,  194; 
and  Creek  expedition,  270 
Catell,  William,  Jr.,  merchant,  121 
Cattle  and  cattle  raising  in  South 
Carolina,  22,  91,  120,  163,  184-5 
Cavelier,  Abbe  Jean,  47 
Cedar,  export  of,  110 
Chacatos.  See  Chatot 
Chagee,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Chackchiuma  Indians,  65 
Chancery,  proceedings  in,  313-14, 
316,  318 

Chanmasculo  (John  Musgrove), 
260  n. 

Channing,  Edward,  cited,  121  n., 
162  n. 

Charity  schools,  philanthropists  and, 
304,  305,  321 

Charles  I,  patent  to  Heath,  50 
Charles  II,  grants  Carolina  charter, 
4 

Charles  II,  of  Spain,  64 

Charles  Town,  [Old],  founded,  3; 

attacked,  10;  fortified,  11 
Charles  Town  [New],  22,  24,  28, 
30,  37,  46,  62,  66,  67,  68,  78,  81, 
93,  98,  107,  116,  117,  136,  138,  154, 
170,  195,  217,  222,  235,  237,  238, 
275,  289,  299;  abortive  attack 
(1686),  31;  Indian  trade  routes 
from,  44,  128,  129,  132;  Carolana 
fleet  at,  56-7;  projected  French 
attack  (1702),  72;  alarmed  at 
French  in  West,  73,  74;  Indian 
slave-market  at,  85,  113,  147; 


Franco-Spanish  attack  (1706),  86- 
7,  88,  89 ;  embargo  at,  91 ;  threat¬ 
ened  attacks,  91,  173-4;  prepara¬ 
tions  for  Louisiana  attack,  96 ; 
Indian  delegations  at,  104,  109, 
123,  179,  192  n„  194,  200,  257,  259, 
265-6,  269-70;  port  town,  108; 
metropolis  of  southern  Indian 
trade,  108-9,  120-3,  124,  222; 

merchants  of,  108,  120-3,  125,  128; 
exports,  112,  328-331 ;  trading- 
firms  of,  125 ;  fortification  of, 
149 ;  trial  of  traders  at,  151 ; 
traders  licensed  at,  157,  202,  204; 
and  Yamasee  War,  167,  169,  171- 
2,  173;  public  trade  at,  194,  333; 
illicit  trade  to  Pensacola  and 
Mobile,  198;  threatened  Spanish 
attack  (1719),  218,  262;  and 
revolution  of  1719,  219;  Spanish 
embassies  at,  239,  243-4 ;  Spanish 
claim  to,  241 ;  Glover’s  picture  of 
trade  of,  271 ;  Cuming  at,  277 
and  n. 

Charlton,  Mrs.  John,  and  Yamasee, 
264  n. 

Charterhouse,  Cuming  a  poor  brother 
of,  277 

Chasee,  Yamasee  town,  164 
Chateaugue,  Jean  Baptiste  le  Moyne 
de,  91 ;  builds  Fort  de  Crevecoeur, 
261 

Chatooga,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Chatooga  River,  130 
Chatot  Indians,  17,  21,  38,  86 
Chattahoochee,  Lower  Creek  town, 
134 

Chattahoochee  River,  Indian  towns 
on,  30,  34,  35,  130,  133-4,  183,  185, 
254-5 ;  English  activities  on,  30, 
34-6;  English  cross,  45;  French 
at  mouth  of,  227 ;  proposed  fort 
on,  230,  261 
Chatuache,  5 

Chawasha  Indians,  104,  105 
Chekill,  of  Coweta,  269,  271 
Cherokee  Indians,  and  Westo,  16; 
raid  Guale,  17,  24;  and  Savannah, 
21,  40,  41 ;  Carolina  trade  with, 
21,  39,  40-1,  45,  62,  108,  111  w., 
112,  132,  141,  154,  183,  194-7,  199, 
299,  332;  trading  paths,  40,  120, 
129-30,  132-3,  136,  152,  188;  loca¬ 
tion  and  numbers,  41,  93,  131  and 
n. ;  and  French,  72,  99,  209,  224, 
257,  272,  275-6,  288;  as  auxiliaries, 
88,  160,  270;  and  Hughes,  99, 
103  n.,  104 ;  traders  to,  122,  125, 
127,  161 ;  as  burdeners,  128,  195 ; 


364 


INDEX 


Lower  Towns  of,  129-30,  181 ; 
Valley  Towns  of,  130;  Middle 
Towns  of,  130-1;  Overhill  Towns 
of,  130-1  and  181,  276;  Vir¬ 
ginia  trade  with,  154,  196-7,  205 ; 
and  Yamasee  War,  162,  170,  171, 
172,  173,  179-83 ;  march  of  the 
Carolinians  to  (1715),  180-2; 

massacre  Creeks  at  Tugaloo,  182; 
fort  proposed  among,  192,  276 ; 
commissioners  and  agents  among, 
195,  201,  267,  268-9,  275-6;  and 
Senecas,  257;  war  with  Creeks, 
260,  263,  266,  268-9;  English  in¬ 
fluence  over,  267,  275;  peace  with 
Creeks,  269-70;  Chickasaw  band 
among,  273 ;  disaffected  towards 
English,  276,  278;  Cuming’s  visit 
to,  276-80;  send  embassy  to  Eng¬ 
land,  279-80;  embassy  in  England, 
295-302;  treaty  with  Board  of 
Trade,  298-302 
Cherokee  horses,  127 
Cherokee  Mountains,  277-8 
Cherokeeleechee,  Lower  Creek  chief, 
pro-Spanish,  134 

Cherokeeleechee’s  fort  (and  town), 
134,  247,  255,  266 

Chester,  John,  trader,  127,  181, 

192  257 

Chesterfield,  Philip  Dormer  Stan¬ 
hope,  Earl  of,  295-6 
Chewale,  Upper  Creek  town,  259 
Chiaflus  (Theophilus  Hastings), 
260  n. 

Chiaha,  Lower  Creek  town,  134 
Chichimecos,  Chichumecoes,  5,  17, 
24.  See  also  Westo 
Chickasaw  Indians,  early  English 
contacts  with,  39,  45-6,  57,  65 ; 
furnish  slaves  to  English,  45-6, 
67,  69,  84,  85,  112;  early  French 
relations  with,  67,  68-70,  72 ;  in 
Queen  Anne’s  War,  84-6,  91,  95-6; 
and  Hughes,  103-4;  traders  with, 
108,  121,  125,  134,  151,  169,  202; 
trading  path  to,  133,  135-6 ;  loca¬ 
tion  and  numbers,  136;  and  Yam¬ 
asee  War,  167,  169-70,  181,  185; 
bands  on  Carolina  border,  190, 
254;  trade  reopened  (1717),  259; 
attack  Kasihta,  268 ;  attack  French, 
273 ;  attack  Yazoo  and  Koroa, 
273;  joined  by  Natchez,  273;  at¬ 
tacked  by  Choctaw,  273 ;  disrup¬ 
tion  of,  273,  275;  and  Natchez 
War,  274-5.  Sec  also  Choctaw. 
Chicken,  Colonel  George,  117,  129; 
in  Yamasee  War,  172,  176,  181 ; 


Indian  commissioner,  181,  194; 
sole  commissioner,  200 ;  among 
Cherokee,  201  and  «.,  267,  268 ;  on 
Virginia  trade,  204-5  ;  on  Cherokee 
loyalty,  275 ;  with  Cuming,  277 
Child,  James,  Cherokee  trader,  147 
Chiluques,  17.  See  Cherokee 
Chippewa  Indians,  63 
Chisca  Indians.  See  Yuchi 
Chisca  Talofa,  Lower  Creek  town, 
134 

Choctaw  Indians,  feud  with  Chick¬ 
asaw,  45,  46,  69,  83,  84-5,  91,  95, 
112,  136;  raided  by  English  and 
their  Indians,  67,  85-6,  95-6 ;  alli¬ 
ance  with  French,  67-70,  72,  85, 
98,  105,  170,  255 ;  truce  with 
Chickasaw  (1702),  67-70;  Nairne’s 
intrigues  with,  89-90,  98 ;  Hughes’s 
intrigues  with,  103-5;  English 
trade  with,  108,  121,  122,  126,  273 ; 
“Revolution”  (1747),  126;  Eng¬ 
lish  presents  to,  127 ;  location  and 
numbers,  136;  trading  path  to, 
136 ;  in  Yamasee  War,  162,  169, 
170;  English  overtures  to  ( 1720- 
1725),  272,  273,  274;  in  Natchez 
conspiracy,  274;  attack  Natchez 
and  Chickasaw,  274-5 
Chotte,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Christ  Church  Hospital,  Cherokee 
visit,  296 

Chufytachyqj  (Cofitachique?),  13 
and  n. 

Church  controversy  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  145-6 

Clarendon,  Earl  of,  Proprietor,  1 18 
Clewalla  Creek,  134 
Clifton,  Sir  Robert,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  311  n. 

Climate,  Purry’s  theory  of,  284,  285 
Clogoitta,  Cherokee  warrior,  279 
Coal,  Hughes  on,  100 
Coats,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Cochrane,  Major  James,  264  n. 
Cochrane,  Sir  John,  of  Ochiltree, 
and  Cardross,  27 

Coleman,  James,  manager  of  pack- 
horses,  194 

Colleton,  James,  Landgrave,  stops 
attack  on  Florida,  32;  negotiates 
with  Medina,  33 ;  accused  of  mo¬ 
nopoly,  140-1 

Colleton,  Sir  John,  Proprietor,  164  n. 
Colleton,  Sir  Peter,  Proprietor,  28  »., 
118 

Colleton  county,  supports  Nairne, 
92  >i. ;  opposes  Moore  and  John- 


INDEX 


365 


son,  143,  145 ;  settled  by  cattle 
ranchers,  163;  militia  of,  170 
Colleton  River,  44 
Colonization  projects,  22,  94,  281. 
See  also  Annarea ;  Azilia;  Caro- 
lana  ;  Georgina  ;  Golden  Islands 
Combahee,  cassique  of,  137 
Combahee  River,  162,  163-4  and 
n„  169,  170,  214 

Commissioners.  See  Indian  com¬ 
missioners 

Commissions,  English,  to  Indian 
chiefs,  265,  268,  275 
Committees  on  gaols,  Parliamentary, 
308,  310-12  and  n.,  317 
Commons  House  of  Assembly.  See 
South  Carolina 

Compact  theory,  asserted  against 
Proprietors,  289 

Compagnie  des  Indes,  alarms  Eng¬ 
lish,  224,  228 ;  Purry  warns  of 
activities,  285 

Compagnie  d’Occident,  209,  224,  262 
Companies,  in  Indian  trade,  127 
Conchaque,  Choctaw  town,  104 
Conchaques.  See  Creeks,  Upper 
Conference  on  trade,  Virginia- 
South  Carolina,  231 
Conference  on  western  trade,  Bello- 
mont  proposes,  63 
Congaree,  Indian  town,  120,  159, 

187,  188,  277 ;  focus  of  trading 
paths,  129;  limit  of  trade  (1691), 
141  ;  Indians,  in  Yamasee  War, 
172;  factory,  194 

Congaree  Fort,  129,  188,  199 
Conjurer,  Cherokee  chief,  181,  183, 

188,  195,  332  n. 

Conseil  de  Marine,  256 
Conseilliere,  Benjamin  de  la,  mer¬ 
chant,  121,  173 

Convention,  revolutionary,  in  South 
Carolina  (1719),  218 
Cooper,  Anthony  Ashley.  See 
Shaftesbury 

Cooper  River,  13,  118,  172 
Coosa,  Upper  Creek  town,  135 
Coosa  Indians.  See  Abihka 
Coosa  River,  135,  256 
Coosaw  King,  Choctaw  chief,  pro- 
English,  274 

Coosawhatchie  Island,  163 
Coosawhatchie  River,  164  n.,  189 
Cophtas.  See  Quapaw 
Coram,  Thomas,  and  Georgia,  305, 
317  n.,  322;  career,  309,  321-2; 
colonization  schemes,  309  and  n., 
322;  and  Bray,  309,  317;  and  Gee, 


315  ;  Associate  and  Trustee,  320  n. ; 
colonial  expert,  321-2 
Coree  Indians,  in  Yamasee  War,  175 
Cornwall,  Velters,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  311  and  n. 

Cotechney  Creek,  159 

Cotes,  Rev.  Digby,  Associate,  320  n. 

Cotuchike,  13  n. 

Council  of  the  Indies,  Spain,  86, 
239,  243 

Councils,  Indian,  at  Mobile  (1702), 
69-70,  112;  at  Coweta  (1717), 
2(50;  Cherokee  (1725),  267;  at 
Coweta  (1725),  268;  at  Charles 
Town  (1727),  269-70;  at  Ne- 
quasse  (1730),  277,  279 
Coureurs  de  bois,  4,  42-3 ;  Carolina 
traders  compared  with,  39,  109- 
10,  152;  in  Carolina,  66,  111m. 
Couture,  Jean,  coureur  de  bois,  in 
New  France,  42-3;  desertion,  43; 
route  to  Carolina,  43,  90 ;  land 
grant  to,  43  n. ;  and  mining 
scheme,  43-4,  154;  guides  traders 
to  Mississippi,  44,  65 ;  interview 
with  Nicholson,  60;  Hennepin  on, 
64  n. 

Covenanters,  at  Stuart’s  Town,  25-6 
Cowee,  Cherokee  town,  131 ;  factory, 
196 

Cowee  range,  131 

Coweta,  Lower  Creek  town,  Guale 
Indians  flee  to,  25 ;  Cardross 
plans  trade  with,  29  n. ;  early  Eng¬ 
lish  contacts  with,  33-4;  “war 
town,”  34;  burned  by  Spanish,  35; 
leads  eastward  migration,  35 ;  lo¬ 
cation  (1691-1715),  36,  134;  and 
Westo,  37 ;  English  trade  and  al¬ 
liance  with,  45,  74,  82;  trading 
paths  to,  133-4,  152;  location 

(post  1716),  134  and  n.,  254;  lead¬ 
ership  in  Yamasee  War,  169; 
Anglo-Spanish  rivalry,  257-8,  260, 
266,  268,  271;  and  French,  266. 
See  also  Brims ;  Creeks,  Lower 
Coxe,  Dr.  Daniel,  colonial  pro¬ 
moter,  x,  22,  285 ;  physician  and 
scientist,  48;  New  Jersey  enter¬ 
prises,  49;  western  interests,  49- 
50 ;  acquires  Heath  and  Maltrav- 
ers  patents,  50;  promotion  activi¬ 
ties,  51-5;  and  Hennepin,  51-4; 
and  Huguenots,  54-5,  57,  59;  Pro¬ 
posals,  55;  and  Board  of  Trade, 
57-9,  225-7,  252 ;  Nicholson  on,  58; 
Florida  Company  scheme,  58  and, 
n. ;  on  Carolina  traders,  58 ;  on 
French  encirclement,  59;  revives 


366 


INDEX 


project,  59,  225;  significance,  60; 
and  Creek  treaty  text,  83  n. 

Coxe,  Daniel,  the  younger,  compiles 
Description  of  Carolana,  48-9,  58, 
226 

Craggs,  James,  Secretary  of  State, 
219 

Craven,  Charles,  governor  of  South 
Carolina,  correspondence  with 
Cadillac,  98,  104 ;  and  Hughes, 
100,  105,  106;  on  Indian  board, 
150;  and  Tuscarora  War,  160-1; 
and  Yamasee  War,  168,  171-2,  173, 
175;  urges  trade  regulation,  193; 
on  French  danger,  206 

Craven,  William,  Lord,  Proprietor, 
118 

Craven,  William,  Lord,  a  minor, 
Proprietor,  208 

Craven  county,  grant  to  Hughes  in, 
99 

Crawley,  David,  Virginia  trader,  on 
Carolina  traders,  165-6 

Creek  Indians,  origin  of  name,  36, 
133  ;  and  Iberville’s  program,  72-4; 
in  Queen  Anne’s  War,  78-9,  85, 
95-6,  144;  treaty  with  South 

Carolina  (1705),  82-3;  trade  and 
traders,  112,  122-3,  126-7,  132, 
161,  194,  259,  333;  delegations, 
123,  200,  269-70;  and  Cherokee, 
130,  180-3,  260,  263,  266,  268-70; 
and  Tuscarora  War,  160;  and 
Yamasee  War,  168,  179,  180-3, 
195;  peace  with  (1717),  183-5, 
257-9;  policy  of,  185,  254,  258, 
260-1 ;  international  rivalry  among 
(1717-1730),  191,  245,  255,  257-61, 
266,  270-2,  288;  forts  proposed 
among,  192,  261 ;  and  Georgia, 
192 ;  Indian  agents  and  factors 
among,  201-2 ;  confederation, 
amalgamation  of  stocks  in,  254 ; 
and  Yamasee,  263-6;  Chickasaw 
among,  273 ;  and  Senecas,  275. 
See  also  Creeks,  Lower;  Creeks, 
Upper 

Creeks,  Lower,  and  Westo,  13,  16, 
20;  and  Guale  Indians,  17,  24,  25; 
Carolinian  trade  and  alliance  with, 
21,  30,  33-6,  37,  74,  78,  82-3,  88, 
133,  141,  169,  265,  272;  Wood¬ 
ward’s  activities  among,  30,  34- 
6;  country  of  ( ante  1691),  34; 
and  Florida  (1679-1691),  34-6; 
migration  to  Ocmulgee,  36 ;  and 
Florida  (1691-1702),  38,  74.  78; 
location  and  numbers  (1691- 
1715),  133;  location  ( post  1716), 


133-4,  179,  183,  185;  trading  paths 
to,  133-4;  agents  among,  152,  201- 
2,  249,  267-8,  270-2;  and  Yamasee 
War,  162,  168,  169,  179-84;  pro¬ 
posed  forts  among,  191,  230, 

258 ;  Anglo-Spanish  rivalry  among 
(1717-1727),  244,  245,  247,  254-6, 
257-61,  265-70;  crisis  of  1727  and 
projected  campaign,  249,  250-1, 
270-2 ;  and  Yamasee,  255,  263-4, 
270;  and  French,  256,  268,  274. 
See  also  Apalachicola ;  Creek  In¬ 
dians  ;  Ochese  Creek  Indians ;  and 
several  towns 

Creeks,  Upper,  beginnings  of  Eng¬ 
lish  trade  with,  45-6,  46 n. ;  Iberville 
and,  70,  72;  war  with  Louisiana, 
75,  82;  treaty  with  South  Caro¬ 
lina  (1705),  82-3;  and  Chickasaw, 
84 ;  attack  Pensacola,  88 ;  Nairne 
and,  89;  Bienville  and,  97,  255-6; 
location  and  numbers,  133-5 ;  trad¬ 
ing  paths  to,  134-5;  agents  to, 
144  and  n.,  202,  272;  in  Yamasee 
War,  169,  180;  proposed  English 
fort  among,  191;  French  fort 
among,  256,  265;  Carolinian  trade 
reopened  with,  256-7 ;  pro-English, 
265-6,  270-1 ;  and  Sharp  outrage, 
266,  268;  and  French,  274.  See 
also  Abihka ;  Alabama ;  Creeks ; 
Talapoosa;  and  several  towns 
Croft,  Edward,  merchant,  121 
Crokatt,  James,  merchant,  121 
Crosse,  John,  on  gaols  committee, 
311  «. 

Crown  of  Tennessee,  279 
Crozat,  Antoine,  grant  to,  106,  209 
Cuffy,  Yoa  Indian,  warns  of  Yama- 
see-Creek  rising,  168  and  n. 
Cumberland  Island,  8 
Cuming,  Sir  Alexander,  129,  276; 
career,  277;  projects,  277,  298;  in 
South  Carolina,  277  and  n. ;  sci¬ 
entific  interests,  277-8;  among 
Cherokee,  277-80;  at  Nequasse 
council,  279 ;  and  Cherokee  em¬ 
bassy,  279-80,  295,  297 ;  memori¬ 
als,  298;  seeks  viceroyalty  of  the 
Cherokee,  298;  ignored  by  Board 
of  Trade,  298;  and  Cherokee 
treaty,  300-1 

Cunasagee  (Sugar  Town),  Chero¬ 
kee  town,  130 
Cundry,  Joseph,  trader,  127 
Cunisca,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Curasao,  illicit  trade  with,  156 
Cusabo  Indians,  12,  19,  87,  138,  194 
Cusawte  (Tennessee)  River,  90  n. 


INDEX 


367 


Cussaba,  of  Kasihta,  Lower  Creek 
chief,  265-6 

Cussate  (Tennessee)  River,  90 
Cussatoes.  See  Kasihta 
Cussings,  George,  Creek  trader,  127 
Cussitaws.  See  Kasihta 
Cypress,  Fort  King  George  built  of, 
236 

D’Allone,  Abel  Tassin,  306 ;  legacy 
of,  306-7,  314,  318,  319,  322,  323. 
Dalton,  Joseph,  13 
Daniel,  Robert,  76,  160,  178-9,  193 
Darien,  26,  102 

D’Artaguiette.  See  Artaguiette 
Davion,  Rev.  Antoine,  67,  70 
Dawfuskee,  164  n.,  178 
Debtor  colony  scheme,  309,  314, 
317-8 

Debtors,  inducements  to  settle  fron¬ 
tier,  283 ;  English,  laws  relieving, 
312-3 

Debts,  of  Indians,  152-3,  166-7 ;  of 
traders,  124-5,  151 
Deer,  111-2 

Deerskins,  French  trade  for,  70; 
exports  from  South  Carolina  and 
Virginia,  109,  110-12,  177,  207, 
328-31 ;  dressed,  195 
Defense,  in  South  Carolina,  158, 
184,  187-93,  217 

Delegations,  Indian,  at  Charles 
Town,  104,  109,  123,  179,  19 2  m., 
194,  200,  257,  259,  265-6,  269-70 
De  Leon,  Tomas,  attacks  Carolina, 
31 

Delisle,  Guillaume,  map  of,  224 
De  Luna  y  Arrellano,  Tristan,  39 
“Demonstracion  Historiographica,” 
240-1 

Description  of  Carolana,  58,  226 
Dernieres  deconvertes,  54  and  n. 
De  Soto,  Hernando,  8,  39 
D’Estrees.  See  Estrees. 

Detour  des  Anglais,  57 
Digby,  Edward,  Associate  and  Trus¬ 
tee,  320  n.,  321 

Digby,  William,  Lord,  and  Bray, 
305,  321 

Discourse  concerning  ...  a  New 
Colony,  211  and  n. 

Dividing  Paths,  129 
Dodsworthy,  Anthony,  trader  and 
partizan  leader,  46,  66,  74,  79 
Doncaster  and  Dalkeith,  James, 
Earl  of,  scheme  for  Florida  col¬ 
ony,  26-7 

Dongan,  Thomas,  governor  of  New 
York,  western  policy,  50 


Dorchester  (South  Carolina),  120 
Dougherty,  Cornelius,  Cherokee 
trader,  125 

Dragoons,  South  Carolina,  187 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  5 
Drake,  Jonathan,  Indian  commis¬ 
sioner,  194 

Dubois,  Guillaume,  Cardinal,  favors 
expansion  on  the  Gulf,  263 
Duclos,  256 

Dudley,  Joseph,  governor  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts,  174 

Duffels,  duffields,  in  Indian  trade, 
108,  116,  332 

Dulhut,  Daniel  Greysolon,  110 
Dunlop,  William,  and  Lord  Car- 
dross,  28  and  n. 

Durham,  Major  David,  commands 
at  Fort  Moore,  188 
Dutch  East  India  Company,  and 
Purry,  284 

Duvall,  Thomas,  Cherokee  trader, 

122 

Echota,  Cherokee  town,  130,  179, 
181 

Echoy,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Edenburgh,  John,  trader,  29 
Edisto  Bluff,  132,  171,  190 
Edisto  Indians,  6,  137 
Edisto  Island,  91,  118 
Edisto  River,  31,  44,  169,  171,  173 
Edisto  seigniory,  16,  118 
Egrnont,  Earl  of.  See  Percival 
Elejoy,  Cherokee  town,  267,  275 
Elizabeth  Farnese,  Queen  of  Spain, 
262 

Ellijay  the  little,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Elton,  Sir  Abraham,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  312  n. 

“Empire,  English  American,”  94 
Encirclement,  French,  in  Carolinian 
propaganda,  ix,  73,  206,  208-9, 
218,  220,  227,  229-31,  261,  281, 
288,  324-5;  Coxe  on,  59-60;  Nich¬ 
olson  on,  61,  229;  and  British 
western  policy,  61,  73,  162,  220, 
231-4,  281,  324-5;  pro  jet  for,  71- 
3 ;  counter-measures,  90,  234 ; 

Spotswood  on,  222-3;  Keith  and 
Logan  on,  223-4 ;  English  alarm 
at,  228;  evidences  of,  261-2;  Gee 
on,  315 

England,  3,  12,  247,  254,  262.  See 
also  Great  Britain 
English,  9-10,  26,  32,  34,  45,  47,  50, 
69,  88,  102,  105,  106,  273.  See  also 
England ;  South  Carolina ;  Vir¬ 
ginia  ' 


368 


INDEX 


Enterprise,  H.  M.  S.,  235 
Esah,  Esaughs,  Essawes.  See  Ca¬ 
tawba 

Estatoee,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Estrees,  Cardinal  de,  78 
Eufala,  Lower  Creek  town,  134 
Euphase,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Eveleigh,  Samuel,  Charles  Town 
merchant,  108,  121 ;  interest  in 
Indian  trade  and  regulation,  121-3; 
agent  for  Georgia  Trust,  122  n.; 
Indian  commissioner,  122  and  n., 
150;  entertains  Creeks,  123 
Evans,  Colonel,  commands  Virginia 
troops  in  Yamasee  War,  175 
Expansion,  forces  of,  in  South 
Carolina,  vii,  22-3 ;  sentiment  of, 
ix,  88,  93,  102 ;  policy  of,  in  sev¬ 
enteenth  century,  17,  22-46,  64-7 ; 
traders  and,  22-3;  main  routes  of, 
39 ;  Coxe  promotes  idea  of,  50 ; 
and  international  rivalry,  71,  324- 
5;  in  Queen  Anne’s  War,  71-107 ; 
in  old  Southwest  (1717-1730), 
256-76,  passim 

Expansionists,  Carolinian,  103.  See 
also  Barnwell ;  Blake ;  Hughes ; 
Moore;  Nairne;  Stewart 
Exploration  and  explorers,  French, 
viii,  3-4,  39,  41-2;  Virginian,  viii, 
4,  14,  221 ;  Spanish,  8,  39 ;  Caro¬ 
linian;  13-14,  16,  39-40,  41-2,  46-7, 
109,  324.  See  also  Couture; 

Hughes  ;  Nairne  ;  Stewart ;  Welch  ; 
Woodward 
Expresses,  192  n. 

Eyles,  Captain  Francis,  on  gaols 
committee,  312;  Associate  and 
Trustee,  320  n. 

Factors,  in  public  trade,  194-5,  199 
Factories,  of  Carolina  traders,  90, 
105,  129-31,  135,  191,  194-6,  258 
Fallam,  Robert,  Virginia  explorer, 
viii,  15;  journal  owned  by  Coxe,  49 
Fall  line,  of  Savannah  River,  21. 
128,  132,  170;  beginning  of  trad¬ 
ing  paths,  129;  of  Chattahoochee 
River,  134 

Fenwick,  Major  John,  Indian  com¬ 
missioner,  193-4 

Fenwick,  Robert,  planter-trader, 
155  n. 

Fernandez,  Juan,  mission  to  Creeks, 
259-60 

Firearms,  in  Indian  trade,  12,  16,  46, 
74,  117,  332 

Fish,  in  international  rivalry,  4 
Fitch,  Tobias,  Creek  agent,  117,  122, 


201,  267;  on  effects  of  trade  on 
Indians,  117;  opposed  by  Eve¬ 
leigh,  122;  partnership  with 
Glover,  122;  sole  commissioner, 
200;  Creek  mission  (1725),  267- 
8,  (1726),  268;  services  of,  272; 
and  Choctaw,  273 
Five  Nations.  See  Iroquois 
Flamborough,  H.  M.  S.,  219 
Flax,  culture  of  proposed,  315,  316 
Fleet  prison,  312 
Flint  River,  34,  74  and  n.,  134 
Flints,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  195, 
332 

Florida,  vii-ix ;  missions  of,  3,  5-9, 
17,  24,  76,  79-81 ;  and  English  in¬ 
trusions,  7,  9-10,  11,  17,  26-7,  30, 
51,  55,  86,  94,  233-4,  324;  extent 
of,  9,  39 ;  English  captives  in,  10 ; 
borders  of,  11,  24,  33,  36,  72,  109, 
136,  234,  238,  251,  255;  and 
Shaftesbury,  14 ;  Indian  policy  of, 
24 ;  sends  punitive  expedition 
against  English  Indians,  24 ». ; 
northern  border  deserted  by  In¬ 
dians,  26 ;  sends  expedition  against 
Carolina  (1686),  31;  weakness  of, 
33,  73 ;  and  Creeks,  36-8,  74,  255. 
257-61,  265-72;  expansion  to  Pen¬ 
sacola,  56 ;  and  Blake,  65 ;  and 
Iberville,  73-4;  Moore’s  campaigns 
in,  75-80 ;  and  Anglo-French  ri¬ 
valry,  75,  77,  78,  86;  ravaged  by 
English  and  Indians,  80-1,  89 ;  and 
Yamasee,  164 ».,  171,  185,  247-8, 
264;  and  Yamasee  War,  167,  185, 
206;  English  projects  for  con¬ 
quest,  222-3,  227,  242 ;  boundary 
controversies  with  South  Carolina, 
238-45,  251-3,  288 ;  runaway  slaves 
in,  239,  241,  244;  Palmer’s  inva¬ 
sion  of,  249-51 ;  French  intrusion 
in,  261 ;  in  Franco-Spanish  war 
(1719),  262-3;  cooperation  with 
Louisiana,  263,  271,  274 ;  meagre 
commerce  of,  271 ;  South  Carolina 
urges  cession  of,  288.  See  also 
Anglo-Spanish  rivalry;  Franco- 
Spanish  cooperation ;  Pensacola ; 
St.  Augustine ;  Spaniards ;  and 
several  governors 
Florida  Company,  58 
Florida,  East  and  West,  and  Indian 
trade,  111 

Fontaine,  Benjamin  de  la,  291 
Forks  (Altamaha),  248 
Forks  village  (Weopka),  Lower 
Creek  town,  134. 

Fort  Barnwell,  159 


INDEX 


369 


Fort  Congaree,  129,  188,  199 
Fort  de  Crevecoeur,  227,  261 
Fort  Frederick,  189 
Fort  Henry  (Virginia),  15 
Fort  King  George,  179,  188,  189,  190, 
191,  261,  287,  325 ;  advocated  by 
Barnwell,  229-31 ;  approved  in  Eng¬ 
land,  231-3 ;  inaugurates  scheme 
of  border  posts,  233-4,  241 ;  rela¬ 
tion  to  Georgia,  234 ;  building  qf, 
235-6 ;  description  of,  237,  252 ; 
garrison  at,  237,  238  n.,  246  ;  Span¬ 
ish  demand  destruction  of,  239-40, 
242-4;  Carolinian  fears  for,  241-2; 
Spanish  visit,  242 ;  Benavides’  in¬ 
structions  regarding,  242 ;  nego¬ 
tiations  (1725),  243-5;  burned, 
245 ;  rebuilt,  246 ;  garrison  with¬ 
drawn,  246,  248-9,  270;  Nicholson 
on  value  of,  251 ;  Board  of  Trade 
report  on,  251-2;  proposed  settle¬ 
ment  at,  288;  instructions  to  re¬ 
build,  294 

Fort  Moore,  180,  187-8,  190,  192,  199, 
266,  283 

Fort  Prince  George,  130 
Fort  St.  Louis  (Illinois),  43 
Fort.  St.  Louis  (Mobile),  83,  90,  97, 
106 

Fort  Toulouse  aux  Alibamons,  135, 
185,  218,  223,  227,  230,  260,  261, 
265,  268,  273 ;  key  to  Creek  coun¬ 
try,  185,  256 ;  date  of  building, 
256  and  n.;  location,  256;  deser¬ 
tions  from,  258  n. 

Forts,  frontier,  proposed  by  Board 
of  Trade,  63,  232 ;  Barnwell’s 
scheme  for,  191,  229-30 ;  proposed 
by  South  Carolina  assembly,  191-2, 
276;  proposed  by  Gee,  315 
Foundling  Hospital,  London,  Coram 
and,  309,  322 

Fox,  man-of-war,  123,  280. 

France,  56,  115,  217,  247,  254,  262, 
271 

Franciscans,  activities  in  Florida,  5, 
9,  11,  18,  31,  34,  241 
Franckland,  Sir  Thomas,  of  Board 
of  Trade,  on  gaols  committee, 
312  n. 

Franco-Spanish  attack  on  Charles 
Town,  projected,  71-2,  86-7 ;  fail¬ 
ure  (1706),  87;  later  attempts,  87, 
91 

Franco-Spanish  conflict  in  Gulf  re¬ 
gion  (1719),  218,  262-3 
Franco-Spanish  cooperation,  policy 
of  Iberville,  71-4,  86-7 ;  Moore  on, 


74 ;  during  Franco-Spanish  war 
(1727),  271-2,  274 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  Associate 
(1762),  323  n. 

Franquelin,  Jean  Baptiste  Louis,  map 
(1688),  42 
Frederica,  251 

Free  trade,  intercolonial,  policy  of 
Board  of  Trade,  156;  advocated 
by  Keith,  203;  in  Azilia,  211 
French,  rivalry  with  English,  4- 
limits  of  southward  advance,  39, 
41 ;  on  Mississippi,  39,  66,  142;  ex¬ 
pansion  advocated,  47 ;  English 
threaten  through  Florida,  75,  78, 
86;  and  Creeks,  78,  95,  117,  257, 
265-6,  272;  menace  Carolina  and 
her  neighbors,  86,  174,  206,  209, 
223,  238,  241 ;  and  Yamasee  War, 
167,  185,  206;  push  eastward,  223, 
261-2;  view  Altamaha,  227,  229, 
233 ;  measures  to  check,  230 ;  and 
Cherokee,  230,  267,  272,  275,  278; 
support  Florida,  268,  271  and  n. ; 
and  Chickasaw,  273.  See  also 
Anglo-French  rivalry;  Bienville; 
Encirclement;  Iberville;  Louisiana 
Friars.  See  Franciscans 
Frontier,  South  Carolina  as  a,  vii,  3, 
63,  93,  185-6,  207,  208-9,  220,  227, 
230,  232,  293 

Frontier,  farming,  and  Indian  wars, 
162;  fighting,  171 
Frontier,  southern,  defined,  vii,  4 
Fundamental  Constitutions,  28,  138 
Fur  trade,  vii,  4,  16,  50,  93,  100,  109, 
324.  See  also  Albany ;  Canada ; 
Indian  trade;  New  York 
Fusees,  in  Indian  trade,  116 

Gaols  committees.  See  Committees 
Garrison  Point,  236 
Garrisons,  frontier,  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  169,  171-2,  173,  178,  188-90, 
199;  Indian  trade  at,  194,  196,  199; 
inspected  by  Indian  commissioners, 
200-1 

Gee,  Joshua,  on  Carolina  boundaries, 
225  n. ;  Trade  and  Navigation,  par¬ 
allels  with  Oglethorpe’s  scheme, 
315-16;  and  Coram,  315 
Geneva,  286 

Gentleman’s  Magazine,  320 
Geographic  factors,  14-15,  23 
George  II,  receives  Cherokee,  296-7, 
300 

Georgia,  origins  in  Anglo-French 
rivalry,  viii,  186,  325;  dual  char¬ 
acter,  x,  281 ;  strategic  origins,  x, 


370 


INDEX 


233-4,  236,  251,  282,  294;  philan¬ 
thropic  origins,  x,  303-24 ;  and 
Indian  trade,  112,  123-4,  154,  202, 
205 ;  and  defense,  192 ;  and  Azilia, 
210;  as  haven  for  foreign  Pro¬ 
testants,  287 ;  institutional  origins, 
303,  312-3,  316-20;  location,  how 
determined,  318 ;  Associates  peti¬ 
tion  for  charter,  320;  publicity, 
320 ;  charter  granted,  322 ;  vogue 
of,  324.  See  also  Associates ; 
Bray ;  Oglethorpe  ;  Percival 
Georgina,  or  Georgia,  Purry’s  pro¬ 
posed  colony,  285 
Gibbon,  William,  merchant,  121 
Gibraltar,  242,  247,  288,  291 
Gilcrest,  Robert,  trader,  179 
Gillespie,  John,  trader,  125,  274 
Girdles,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Glen,  James,  governor  of  South 
Carolina,  cited,  112,  136,  180; 
builds  fort,  192 

Glover,  Charlesworth,  and  Fitch, 
122;  factor  at  Savannah  Town, 
194,  196;  agent  to  Creeks,  201,249, 
270-2,  274 

Goddard,  John,  boundary  commis¬ 
sioner,  252 

Godin,  Benjamin,  merchant,  108,  121 
Godin,  Stephen,  London  merchant, 
121,  198,  286 
Godolphin,  Lord,  3,  9 
Gogel  Eyes,  Upper  Creek  chief,  266 
Gold,  searches  for,  14  «.,  44 
Golden  Islands,  213-14.  See  also 

Goose  Creek,  44,  121,  169,  172 
Gower,  Richard,  Creek  trader,  127 
Goyens,  P.  Jerome,  on  Hennepin, 
51  n. 

Grand  Council,  of  South  Carolina, 
and  Indian  affairs,  19,  138-9 
Grant,  Sir  Archibald,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  311  n. 

Grant,  Ludovick,  trader,  and  Cum¬ 
ing.  277-8 

Granville  county,  occupation  of,  163 
and  fi. ;  and  “Indian  Land.”  164; 
parish  in,  165 ;  depopulation  of, 
184;  fort  in,  189;  raided,  248;  pe¬ 
tition  of  inhabitants,  248 
Graves,  John,  trader,  127 
Gravier,  Father  Jacques,  83 
Gray,  Thomas,  exploration  of,  13 
Great  Britain,  imports  and  exports, 
peltry  and  trading  goods,  115,  156, 
328.  See  also  England. 

Great  Lakes,  49,  50,  61,  62,  66,  221-2. 
See  also  Lake  Erie 


Great  Okfuskee.  See  Okfuskee 
Great  Tellico,  Cherokee  town,  131 
and  7t. ;  factory  at,  131 ;  Moytoy 
of,  276 ;  Cuming  visits,  278 
Great  Tennessee.  SV?  Tennessee 
Greene,  Daniel,  merchant,  121 
Griffin,  trader,  127 ;  half  breed,  264  n. 
Grimball,  Paul,  31 
Grimke,  Frederick,  merchant,  121 
Grove,  Thomas,  and  prisons,  310  n 
Guadalquini,  8,  24,  243 
Guale,  Spanish  mission  district  5-6, 
7-8,  11;  raided  by  Westo,  5;  in¬ 
cursions  of  English  Indians,  17, 
24 ;  ravaged  by  pirates,  25,  33 ; 
abandoned  by  Indians,  25,  76,  86, 
162  ;  Cardross  claims  trade  of,  29  ; 
Cardross  seeks  patent  for,  29  ti.  ; 
towns  of,  164 Yamasee  retire 
to,  171,  178,  189;  final  abandon¬ 
ment  by  Yamasee,  179,  184;  Eng¬ 
lish  occupy.  233,  238,  251 ;  Spanish 
claim  to,  238 ;  Anglo-Spanish  dis¬ 
putes  over,  238-45,  251-3 
Guerra,  Francisco,  governor  of 
Florida,  sends  expedition  against 
Carolina,  10 
Gulf  plains,  viii,  3 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  59,  60,  63,  65,  89, 
222,  226;  Franco-Spanish  rivalry 
in,  73,  218,  262-3 ;  English  claims, 
227  230 

Gulf  of  Florida,  290 
Guns,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Gustin,  Henry,  Cherokee  trader,  127 
Guy,  Rev.  William,  of  St.  Helena 
parish,  165 

Guzman,  entertains  Hughes  at  Pen¬ 
sacola,  107 

Haines,  Gregory,  Cherokee  trader, 
275 

Hales,  Robert,  Associate,  306 
Hales,  Rev.  Stephen,  287 ;  botanist, 
Associate,  Trustee,  306,  320 «., 
321;  and  Purry,  308;  and  Brav, 
317 

Half-thicks,  in  Indian  trade,  116, 
195,  332 

Hancock’s  Town,  Tuscarora  fort, 
159 

Haritaumau  (Altamaha) ,  83  n. 
Harley,  Edward,  philanthropist,  As¬ 
sociate,  320  «.,  321 
Hastings,  Henry,  Associate,  320  n. 
Hastings,  Theophilus,  partizan 
leader,  95-6 ;  trader,  124,  201 ;  in 
Tuscarora  War,  160;  in  Yamasee 
War,  173,  175,  183;  attempts  to 


INDEX 


371 


draw  back  Creeks,  190 ;  interpre¬ 
ter,  192  m.;  chief  factor  among 
Cherokee,  194-6,  201,  257 ;  nego¬ 
tiates  peace  with  Creeks,  201, 
257-9 ;  Creek  agent,  201,  259-60, 
265-7 

Hatchets,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Hats,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Hatton,  William,  factor  among 
Cherokee,  195,  201,  266, -267 
Havana,  9,  11,  72,  76,  86-7,  262 
Heath,  Sir  Robert,  patent,  50,  225-6, 
252 

Heathcote,  Caleb,  206 
Heathcote,  Alderman  George,  on 
gaols  committee,  312;  Associate 
and  Trustee,  320  n.,  323  and  n. 
Heinrich,  Pierre,  cited,  viii,  160  n. 
Henchman,  Daniel,  and  Creek  treaty 
(1705),  83 

Hemp,  projects  to  produce,  315-6 
Hennepin,  Father  Louis,  x;  on  Cou¬ 
ture,  42,  64  m.;  fabrications  of, 
48  m.,  51  and  n.;  and  La  Salle,  51; 
and  Coxe,  51-4;  writings  of,  51-4 
and  n.j  64  n. ;  motives,  52 ;  and 
Blathwayt,  52 ;  relations  with 
English,  52-3,  56;  French  anxiety 
concerning,  52,  56 ;  influence  in 
English  colonies,  60  and  n.,  61 
Herbert,  Major  John,  on  march  to 
Cherokee,  181-2 ;  maps,  192  n., 
277  n. ;  sole  commissioner,  200 ; 
mission  to  Cherokees,  276 
Herne,  John,  murder  of,  172 
Hichitee  Creek,  134 
Hickauhauga,  16.  See  Westo 
Hildesley,  Captain,  opposes  revolu¬ 
tion  (1719),  219,  235 
Hill,  Aaron,  poet,  and  Azilia,  210, 
212-13 

Hill,  Charles,  merchant,  Indian  com¬ 
missioner,  121,  194  m. 

Hilton,  William,  voyage,  5-6 
Hilton’s  Head  Island,  25,  162,  164  n. 
Hitchiti  Indians,  Lower  Creeks,  36, 
134,  164  m. 

Hiwasee,  Cherokee  town,  182 
Hiwasee  River,  130 
Hobihatchee,  “King”  of  Abihka,  269 
Hoes,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  117,  332 
Hogarth,  William,  painting  of  gaols 
committee,  312 
Hogologees,  254.  See  Yuchi 
Holbamah,  83  n.  See  Alabama 
Holden,  Robert,  commission  for 
transmontane  explorations,  16 
Holford,  trader,  127 
Holland,  55-6,  262,  308 


Holland,  Rogers,  on  gaols  commit¬ 
tee,  311,  312  m.;  Associate  and 
Trustee,  314,  320  m.,  323  m. 
Horneck,  Anthony,  and  his  religious 
societies,  305 

Horry,  Peter,  merchant,  121 
Horsey,  Colonel  Samuel,  proprietary 
candidate  for  governor  of  South 
Carolina,  289 
Houma  Indians,  105 
House  of  Commons,  of  Great  Brit¬ 
ain,  attack  on  charters  in,  207-9; 
gaols  committees  of,  295,  312 
and  n. 

How,  Captain  James,  factor  for  Ca¬ 
tawba,  194 

Howarth,  Sir  Humphrey,  on  gaols 
committee,  311  n. 

Hubert,  commissioneur  ordonnateur 
of  Louisiana,  256 

Hucks,  Robert,  entertains  Cherokee, 
297;  on  gaols  committee,  311  and 
n.;  Associate  and  Trustee,  320  m., 
323 

Hudson  Bay,  4,  57,  224  n.,  226 
Hudson’s  Bay  Company,  4,  225 
Hue,  Robert,  Virginia  trader,  155 
Hughes,  Edward,  Samuel  Wesley 
on,  311;  on  gaols  committee,  312 
and  n.;  Associate,  314,  320  m. 
Hughes,  Meredith,  factor,  194 
Hughes,  Price,  x,  131  n.,  185 ;  Welsh 
antecedents,  99;  and  Nairne,  99; 
So'uth  Carolina  settlement  scheme, 
99 ;  western  interests,  99 ;  as  In¬ 
dian  agent,  99-100,  103  m.;  mission 
to  Cherokee,  99-100;  sends  emis¬ 
saries  to  Missouri  tribes,  100; 
Mississippi  colony  scheme,  100-3; 
on  the  West  and  its  resources, 
100-1 ;  map,  102  n.,  223  ;  western 
intrigues,  103-7 ;  on  the  Missis¬ 
sippi,  105  ;  commission,  105 ;  ar¬ 
rest,  105-6 ;  colloquy  with  Bien¬ 
ville,  106 ;  death,  107 
Hughes,  Valentine,  99 
Huguenots,  and  Coxe,  54-5,  57,  59; 
in  South  Carolina,  72,  88,  125,  170, 
187  m. 

Humanitarianism,  English,  in  early 
eighteenth  century,  303-4 
Hunter,  George,  surveyor,  map,  129, 
277  ».;  with  Cuming,  277 
Hunter,  Robert,  governor  of  New 
York,  178 

Huspaw,  Yamasee  town,  164,  178-9, 
236,  255 

Huspaw  King,  264  n. 

Huspaw  (Huspah)  Neck,  164m.,  215 


372 


INDEX 


Hyde,  Edward,  governor  of  North 
Carolina,  160 

Iberville,  Pierre  le  Moyne,  sieur  de, 
founder  of  Louisiana,  39,  45,  48; 
prepares  Mississippi  expedition, 
56 ;  and  Coxe  enterprise,  56-7,  60 ; 
alarms  English  and  colonists,  64 ; 
and  English  traders  in  West,  65-8 ; 
and  coureurs  de  bois,  66 ;  seeks 
cession  of  Pensacola,  67-8,  262 ; 
alliance  with  Choctaw,  68-9 ;  pro¬ 
motes  pacification  of  Louisiana 
tribes,  68-70,  71 ;  and  continental 
rivalry,  71 ;  cooperates  with  Flor¬ 
ida  to  check  English,  71-3,  74 ;  en¬ 
dorses  projet  for  conquest  of 
Carolina,  71,  86;  proposes  re¬ 
arrangement  of  Indians,  72;  his 
frontier  policy  defeated,  83;  con¬ 
tract  for  Carolina  expedition,  87 ; 
system  restored  by  Bienville,  97 ; 
on  Carolina  slave-trade,  112 
Ilcombe,  164  n. 

Illinois  country,  and  Indians,  43,  46, 
47,  60,  69-70,  72,  90,  100,  104 
Imperial  control,  in  Indian  affairs, 
137,  157,  203 

Imperialism,  Anglo-American,  38, 
59,  93,  103,  224,  227,  233,  303.  See 
also  Expansion ;  Expansionists 
Indentured  servants,  in  Indian  trade, 
125,  126 

Independent  company,  royal,  at  Alta- 
maha  and  Port  Royal,  188-9,  235, 
237,  246,  248-9 

India,  international  rivalry  in,  4  _ 
Indian  acts.  See  South  Carolina, 
Statutes 

Indian  administration.  See  Trade, 
Indian;  Regulation 
Indian  alliances,  4,  22,  185,  230.  See 
also  Treaties,  Indian 
“Indian  Book,”  168 
Indian  code,  Carolinian,  137,  202. 

S’cc  also  South  Carolina,  Statutes 
Indian  commissioners,  in  South 
Carolina,  court  of  (1680),  138; 
board  of  (1707-1715),  103-4,  108, 
124-5,  150,  152-3,  165-6;  board  of 
(1716-1723),  187,  193-7 ;  single 
commissioner,  (1723-1756),  200-3 
“Indian  Land,”  76,  91,  163-4,  170-1, 
178,  189-90,  215 

Indian  regulation.  See  Regulation 
Indians,  vii,  ix,  6,  15,  49,  60-1,  73,  94; 
southern,  3,  98,  99,  133,  136,  254; 
and  Florida,  6,  7,  8,  10,  12,  18 ; 
and  South  Carolina,  6,  10-12,  24, 


115,  136,  137-9,  151,  174,  187,  190, 
196,  254,  263,  293;  of  West,  61; 
and  Louisiana,  83-4,  96,  97-8,  185, 
255;  as  auxiliaries,  87-8,  159-61, 
178;  of  Missouri  River,  100;  as 
hunters,  111,  118;  as  farmers,  116, 
133;  effect  of  trade  on,  116-17;  re¬ 
lations  with  traders,  125-6,  162, 
165-6;  debts  of,  153,  166-7;  and 
settlers,  162,  165 ;  migrations  of, 
254-6;  Berkeley  on,  307;  Bray  on, 
308.  See  also  Burdeners ;  Councils  ; 
Delegations ;  Missions ;  Popula¬ 
tion;  Slave-trade;  Slaves;  Trade; 
Traders;  Treaties;  Wars;  and 
under  names  of  towns  and  tribes 
Indigo,  and  international  rivalry,  4 
Inland  Passage,  29^  108,  241_ 
Intercolonial  relations, “93,  137 ;  and 
New  York,  93,  174,  178,  257;  and 
Virginia-South  Carolina  trade  ri¬ 
valry,  153-7;  203-5,  231;  and 
Georgia-South  Carolina  trade  ri¬ 
valry,  123-4,  205 ;  between  North 
and  South  Carolina,  158-61;  and 
Yamasee  War,  171,  173-8 
Intercolonial  trade,  in  Indian  slaves 
and  peltries,  111,  114 
International  rivalry,  commercial 
basis,  4 ;  minor  role  of  Florida  in, 
71 ;  Yamasee  War  and,  185 ; 
among  Lower  Creeks,  254-5 ;  and 
intertribal  relations,  263.  See  also 
Anglo-French  rivalry;  Anglo- 
Spanish  rivalry 
Interpreters,  69,  192  ».,  298 
Intertribal  wars,  23,  111;  Carolinian 
policy,  167  n.,  263-4.  See  also 
under  tribes 

Irish,  Protestant,  attracted  to  Caro¬ 
lina  border,  215 

Iron-stone,  Cuming  searches  for,  277 
Iroquois  Indians,  as  middlemen,  23, 
109 ;  hegemony  in  West,  41 ;  and 
western  trade,  66,  109;  southern 
wars,  93,  257 ;  and  Peace  of 
LTtrecht,  97 ;  and  Albany  councils, 
177;  and  French  intrigues,  209; 
visit  England,  295.  See  also  Se¬ 
neca 

Istechaugaes,  82 
Itseyi,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Izard,  Ralph,  Indian  commissioner, 
150,  193;  opposes  removal  of  in¬ 
dependent  company,  249  n. 

Izard,  Walter,  plantation,  172 

Jackson’s  Bridge,  Pon  Pon,  171 
Jamaica,  60,  76,  171,  185 


INDEX 


373 


James  River,  14,  93,  126 
Tekyl  Island,  8 
jenings,  Edmund,  155 
Jesuits,  in  Florida,  5 ;  in  Louisiana, 
70,  83 

Johnson,  Sir  Nathaniel,  governor  of 
South  Carolina,  78 ;  and  Apalache 
campaign,  78-9 ;  Creek  “address” 
to,  82;  and  defense,  87,  149;  fa¬ 
vors  immediate  attack  on  Mobile, 

189;  persecution  of  Nairne,  92,  94; 
removed,  92 ;  on  traders,  120 ;  on 
regulation,  143 ;  and  Church  con¬ 
troversy,  145  ;  and  Thomas,  145  ; 
conflict  with  assembly  over  Indian 
act,  146-9 ;  opposed  by  Barnwell, 
163;  father  of  Robert  Johnson, 
292 

Johnson,  Robert,  proprietary  gover¬ 
nor  of  South  Carolina,  201,  216, 
259;  and  the  revolution  (1719), 
21  In.,  218;  on  French  danger, 
227 ;  appointed  royal  governor, 
292,  302  n. ;  advocates  defense  and 
colonization,  292 ;  endorses  Purry, 
292 ;  presents  township  scheme, 
292-3  ;  instructions  to,  293-4,  318  ; 
and  Cherokee  treaty,  298-9,  301 
Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  Associate 
(1762),  323  n. 

Johnston,  Rev.  Gideon,  seeks  Indian 
commissionership,  150  m.,-  on  mili¬ 
taristic  spirit  of  Carolinians,  179  n. 
Joincare,  L.  T.  de,  intrigues  with 
Iroquois,  224 
Joliet,  Louis,  42 

Jones,  Cadwallader,  Virginia  Indian 
fighter  and  trader,  61,  119;  scheme 
of  western  trade,  61-2 
Jones,  Captain  John,  trader  and  par- 
tizan  leader,  83,  90,  168,  257,  264  n. 
Jones,  John,  Welshman,  and  Hughes, 
101 

Jore,  Cherokee  town,  131 

Kasihta,  Lower  Creek  town,  early 
Carolinian  contacts  with,  13  n.,  16, 
17,  33,  45;  proprietary  monopoly 
of  trade  with,  17,  19,  118;  Guale 
Indians  flee  to,  25 ;  Cardross  plans 
trade  with,  29  n ;  “peace  town,” 
34;  pro-English,  35,  265,  268-9; 
leads  migration  to  Ocmulgee,  35 ; 
burned  by  Spanish,  35 ;  Westo 
plan  to  join,  37 ;  alliance  with 
South  Carolina  (1705),  82;  trad¬ 
ing  paths  to,  133-4;  location  (1691- 
1715),  134  and  n. ;  location  (post 


1716),  134;  attacked  by  Cherokee, 
268 

Kaskinampo,  Kaskinonka,  Indians, 

,42 

Kealedji,  Upper  Creek  town,  82 
Keene,  Benjamin,  boundary  com¬ 
missioner,  252 

Keith,  Sir  William,  on  French  men¬ 
ace,  203,  209,  220,  223 ;  and  Chero¬ 
kee  treaty,  298-9 

Keowee,  Cherokee  town,  129-30, 
275;  Vale  of,  130;  factory,  196; 
council  (1725),  267;  Cuming  at, 
277-8 

Ketagustah,  Cherokee  “prince.”  279  ; 

speech  to  Board  of  Trade,  300-1 
Kettleby,  Amos,  colonial  agent,  210 ; 

and  Montgomery,  210 
Kettles,  brass,  in  Indian  trade,  116, 
195,  332 

Kiawah,  3  ;  Indians,  6 
King  Hott,  or  Liquor,  Kasihta  chief, 
269 

King  Philip’s  War,  162 
King  legacy,  Oglethorpe  and,  313- 
14 ;  Bray  and,  316 

Knights  of  the  Golden  Horseshoe, 
221 

Knives,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Knott,  Jeremiah.  Creek  trader,  127 
Kolomi,  Lower  Creek  town,  35,  134 
Kollanah,  Cherokee  Indian,  279 
Koroa  Indians,  90,  273 
Kusso  Indians,  13,  18,  137 

La  Brie,  82 

La  Harpe,  Benard  de,  chronicler,  95, 
97 

Lake  Erie,  Spotswood  proposes  post 
on,  93,  222,  224 

Lamboll,  Thomas,  on  causes  for  fail¬ 
ure  of  public  trade,  197 
Land  grants,  on  southern  border,  163 
and  n.,  282 ;  acts,  repealed,  198 
Land  purchases  in  South  Carolina, 
policy,  137 

Land  office,  proprietary,  closed,  217, 
282 

Laroche,  John,  on  gaols  committee, 
311  and  n.;  Associate  and  Trustee, 
320  n. 

La  Salle,  Nicholas  de,  quoted,  70 
La  Salle,  Robert  Cavelier  de,  ex¬ 
plorations,  3-4,  39,  41-2 ;  fears 
English  advance,  42 ;  Hennepin 
and,  51-2 

La  Tour,  Le  Blond  de,  builds  Fort 
Toulouse,  256;  and  Brims,  260-1 
Law,  John,  228 


374 


INDEX 


Lawson,  John,  quoted,  110,  116,  119, 
125 

Lead,  Hughes  discovers,  100 
Leeward,  Islands,  Carolina  trade  to, 
184-5 

Le  Jau,  Rev.  Francis,  152,  183-4 
Lederer,  John,  explorations  of,  14; 

Discoveries,  14-15 
Leon,  Tomas  de.  See  De  Leon 
Lespinay,  M.  de,  governor  of  Louis¬ 
iana,  256,  257-8,  260 
Le  Sueur,  Pierre  Charles,  65,  72 
Letter  from  South  Carolina,  author¬ 
ship  of,  92  n. 

Lewis,  Thomas,  on  gaols  committee, 
312  n. 

Liberty  and  Property,  289  and  n. 
Libraries.  See  Bray;  Parochial  li¬ 
braries 

Licenses,  traders’,  108,  150,  153,  200, 
202-3 

Lime,  Hughes  discovers,  100 
Little  Carpenter,  Cherokee  chief, 
279-80 

Little  Tellico,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Little  Tennessee  River,  130-1 
Livingston,  Robert,  scheme  of  west¬ 
ern  trade,  63 

Lloyd,  John,  colonial  agent,  288 
Lockhart,  Colonel  George,  plans 
Scotch  colony  in  Carolina,  26 
Locke,  John,  15 

Logan,  Colonel  George,  Indian  com¬ 
missioner,  193 

Logan,  James,  on  the  French  in  the 
West,  223-4 
Logan,  John  H.,  viii 
Logwood  trade,  Nairne  on,  94 
London,  negotiations  at,  on  Florida 
boundary,  239 ;  Cherokee  visit, 
296-7 

Long  House.  Sec  Iroquois 
Lonsdale,  John  Lowther,  Lord,  59 
Looking  glasses,  in  Indian  trade,  116, 
332 

Lords  of  Trade,  50 
Lougher,  Walter,  merchant,  121 
Louis  XIV,  47,  48  and  «.,  51,  101 
Louisiana,  colonization  of,  47-8, 
56-7 ;  and  South  Carolina,  64,  66, 
75,  78,  84-6,  86-7,  89-91,  94-7,  167, 
185,  206,  272-5 ;  and  Indians,  67- 
72,  75,  78,  82-6,  89-91,  95,  97,  99, 
117,  255-7,  260,  265-6,  268,  272-5, 
288;  and  Florida,  71-4,  86-8,  218, 
262-3,  268,  271-2,  274 ;  poverty  of, 
84,  271 ;  boundaries  of,  107,  224-7, 
263;  as  border  colony,  109,  256; 
expansion  of,  223,  256,  261-2,  285; 


Georgina  and,  285.  See  also  Bien¬ 
ville  ;  Iberville 

“Louissiania  and  Virginia  Im¬ 
proved,”  Jones’s  essay  on,  61-2 
Louvigny,  Louis  la  Porte  de,  47 
Lower  Path,  36,  133,  135-6 
Lowndes,  Thomas,  and  surrender  of 
Carolina  charter,  290;  and  south¬ 
ern  colonization,  290-1 
Lowther,  Sir  James,  Associate, 
320  n„  321 

Lowther,  Sir  Thomas,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  311  n. 

Ludwell,  Philip,  governor  of  South 
Carolina,  instructions  to,  45 

Macartan  and  Campbell,  trading 
partnership,  128 

McBain,  Laughlin,  Cherokee  trader, 
125,  127 

McCormick,  Alexander,  Cherokee 
trader,  125 

MacDonald,  John,  Creek  trader,  125 
McGillivray,  Archibald,  Creek  trader, 
125,  126-7 

McGillivray,  John,  Creek  trader,  127 
Mcllwain,  C.  H.,  on  Indian  trade, 
viii 

McIntosh,  Miles,  Creek  trader,  125 
Mackay,  Captain  Alexander,  160, 
170-1 

McKinney,  Thomas,  trader,  125 
McNaire,  Charles,  Choctaw  trader, 
126 

McSparran,  Rev.  James,  229  n. 
Maine,  Coram  and,  309  and  n. 
Maltravers,  Lord,  grant  to,  50 
Manchac,  106 

Manikin  Town  (Virginia),  59,  305 
Mantet,  sieur  d’Ailleboust  de,  47 
Maps,  40,  54,  60,  61,  62,  81,  90,  92  n„ 
93-4,  129,  213,  230,  252,  254,  277  ». 
Marques,  Francisco  Menendez,  mis¬ 
sion  to  Charles  Town  (1722),  239; 
boundary  commissioner,  243 
Marques,  Juan  Menendez,  commands 
attack  on  Charles  Town  (1670), 
10 

Marquette,  Father,  4,  42,  53 
Marshalsea  Prison,  312 
Marston,  Rev.  Edward,  145 
Martin,  Francisco,  78 
Martyn,  Benjamin,  secretary  of 

Tmstpps 

Maryland,  23,  44,  49,  60,  63,  93,  148, 
174,  225,  304 
Massachusetts,  208,  294 
Massey,  Captain  Edward,  investi¬ 
gates  burning  of  Fort  King 


INDEX  375 


George,  245 ;  advocates  removal  of 
independent  company,  246,  248-9 
Matheos,  Lieutenant  Antonio,  com¬ 
mands  in  Apalache,  35 ;  contest 
with  Woodward,  35 
Mather,  Cotton,  on  Yamasee  War, 
206 

Mathews,  Maurice,  explorer,  13 ; 
surveyor-general,  28,  119,  140; 

slave-trader,  40,  119,  138,  140;  and 
Moore,  40-1 ;  agent  for  Sir  Peter 
Colleton,  118-19,  loses  offices,  119, 
138,  140 

Mazyck,  Isaac,  merchant,  121 
Medina,  Bernardo  de,  33 
Melvin,  264  n. 

Menendez  de  Aviles,  Pedro,  5 
Merchants,  Charles  Town,  108,  112; 
rise  of,  120;  control  Indian  trade, 
120,  123 ;  names  of,  121 ;  London 
connections,  121  n. ;  interests  in 
regulation,  122-3,  142 ;  Oglethorpe 
on,  123 ;  and  trade  dispute  with 
Georgia,  123-4;  oppose  public  mo¬ 
nopoly,  193,  197-8 

Merchants,  London,  Nicholson  seeks 
support  for  western  trade,  62;  in¬ 
terests  in  Carolina  Indian  trade, 
121  and  n. ;  oppose  Virginia  and 
Carolina  monopolies  in  Indian 
trade,  198  and  n. ;  advocate  royal 
government  in  Carolina,  207 
Mexia,  Captain  Ruiz,  routed  by 
Moore,  79 
Mexico,  255,  262 
Miami  Indians,  63,  276 
Middleton,  Arthur,  mission  to  Vir¬ 
ginia,  174 ;  president  of  South 
Carolina  council,  243 ;  and  Florida 
boundary  dispute,  243-5 ;  on  inde¬ 
pendent  company,  246 ;  secures  re¬ 
building  of  Fort  King  George, 
246 ;  and  Indian  affairs,  248,  267, 
269;  and  withdrawal  from  Alta- 
maha,  248-9 

Militia,  South  Carolina,  11,  87,  91, 
187  and  n.,  218,  247.  See  also  Ya¬ 
masee  War 

Millikin,  James,  Cherokee  trader, 
125 

Mine-country,  Spanish,  La  Salle  and, 
47 ;  Nairne  on  conquest  of,  94 
Minnisink,  Coxe’s  estate  in  New 
Jersey,  49-50 

Miranda,  Father  Angel,  79 
Missing,  Thomas,  and  Lowndes,  291 
Missionalia,  308 

Missionaries,  French,  4,  39,  70,  101, 
152 


Missionary  probationers,  Bray  and, 
310 

Missionary  projects,  English,  N_a- 
irne’s  scheme,  145-6;  Johnston’s, 
150  n.,  180  n. ;  failure  among  Ya¬ 
masee,  166;  Bray’s  project,  308 

Missions,  Spanish,  3,  5,  7-10,  11,  31, 
76,  79-81,  241.  See  also  Apalache ; 
Guale ;  Timucua 

Mississippi  Bubble,  228 ;  Purry  and, 
284 

Mississippi  River,  3,  44,  50,  170 ;  dis¬ 
covered  by  French,  4;  Carolina 
traders  on,  46,  65,  86,  273 ;  rumors 
of  English  designs  on,  47-8;  inter¬ 
national  race  for,  56-7 ;  communi¬ 
cation  with  Canada,  59,  60,  230 ; 
claimed  by  Blake  and  Craven,  65, 
105 ;  and  Hughes’s  colony  plan, 
100-1;  Hughes’s  intrigues  on,  103; 
as  boundary  of  Carolana,  225  ; 
French  settlement  on,  227 ;  difficul¬ 
ties  of  navigation,  232 ;  and  Pur- 
ry’s  project,  285 

Mississippi  Valley,  viii,  42,  46,  89, 
324 

Missouri  River,  tribes  of,  Hughes 
sends  emissaries  to,  100 

Mobile,  23,  70,  72,  85,  95,  105,  209, 
254,  260,  273 ;  Carolinians  claim 
title  to,  45 ;  established  to  check 
English,  68 ;  Indian  councils  at, 
69-70,  83,  84,  98,  170;  English 
plans  for  conquest,  86,  89,  91,  94-5, 
98 ;  Indian  migrations  to,  86,  88, 
255;  Hughes  at,  106;  illicit  trade 
from  Charles  Town,  198 

Mobile  Bay,  45 

Mobilian  Indians,  45,  69,  72,  86 

Moll,  Herman,  maps,  81,  93  n. 

Monger,  Captain  Gerard,  commander 
at  Fort  Moore,  188 

Monopoly  of  Indian  trade,  proprie¬ 
tary,  17,  18,  118-19,  140-1;  at¬ 
tempts  at,  29-30,  140-1 ;  public, 
193-8 

Montagu,  Duke  of,  297 

Montgomery,  Sir  Robert,  colonial 
promoter,  x,  22,  94,  254;  family 
interest  in  colonization,  210;  Azilia 
scheme,  210-14;  Discourse,  211, 
284 ;  and  Barnwell,  213 ;  and 
Golden  Islands,  213  n.  See  also 
Azilia 

Monthly  Mercury  (Present  State  of 
Europe),  61 

Montigny,  Very  Reverend  Jolliet  de, 
67 

Montserrat,  305 


376 


INDEX 


Moore,  James,  Sr.,  planter,  trader, 
and  slave-dealer,  19,  40,  119,  140 ; 
negotiations  with  Westo,  19;  gov¬ 
ernor,  24 ;  expansionist,  24,  40,  66, 
73,  76,  78,  86,  93,  94,  100,  186; 
pioneer  in  Cherokee  trade,  40-1, 
154;  journey  over  Appalachians, 
40-1,  42,  119;  and  Mathews,  40; 
forbidden  to  leave  settlements,  41, 
141 ;  project  to  explore  to  Missis¬ 
sippi,  66  n. ;  warns  of  French  dan¬ 
ger,  74-5;  strategy  of,  75,  86;  and 
St.  Augustine  expedition,  75-7,  78 ; 
conquest  of  Apalache,  79-80,  255 ; 
plantation  manager,  119;  marries 
Lady  Margaret  Yeamans,  119;  cat¬ 
tle  rancher,  119;  and  trade  regula¬ 
tion,  141-4;  charged  with  monopo¬ 
listic  designs,  143  n. ;  opposition  to, 
145 

Moore,  James,  Jr.,  commands  South 
Carolina  force  in  Tuscarora  War, 
160-1;  lieutenant-general  in  Ya- 
masee  War,  178 ;  and  Cherokee, 
183,  188,  195,  332  n. ;  refuses  In¬ 
dian  commissionership,  194  n. ; 
speaker  of  Commons  House  and 
sole  commissioner,  200;  chosen 
governor  (1719),  218 
Moore,  Maurice,  with  North  Caro¬ 
lina  troops  in  Yamasee  War,  161, 
173,  175 ;  commands  Cherokee  ex¬ 
pedition,  161,  180-1 
More,  Robert,  on  gaols  committee, 
312 ».;  Associate  and  Trustee, 
320 ».,  323  and  n. 

Morton,  Landgrave  Joseph,  31,  173 
Moseley,  Edward,  160 
Motte,  Isaac,  Creek  trader,  127 
Motte,  Jacob,  merchant,  121 
Mountaineers.  See  Cherokee. 
Moytoy,  of  Tellico,  276;  and  Cum¬ 
ing,  278-9. 

Muce,  Marquis  de  la.  Huguenot 
leader,  agreement  with  Coxe,  54-5 
Musgrove,  Captain  John,  trader,  in¬ 
terpreter,  83,  124,  150,  257 ;  as¬ 
semblyman,  124;  charges  against, 
147;  Indian  commissioner,  150; 
peace  mission  to  Creeks,  257-9 ; 
at  Coweta  council  (1718),  260 
Musgrove,  half  breed,  264  n. 
Muskhogeans,  in  Creek  confedera¬ 
tion,  164  n.,  254 
Muskogee,  184.  See  Creeks 

Naguchee,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Nairne,  Captain  Thomas,  quoted,  23, 
45,  81,  108,  110,  114,  136;  Florida 


expeditions,  80-1,  163;  in  charge 
of  watches,  87  n. ;  St.  Helena 
planter,  89,  163;  opponent  of 

Johnson,  89,  145;  provincial  In¬ 
dian  agent,  89,  131 «.,  144,  152, 
163;  western  program,  89-91,  93-4; 
makes  peace  with  Choctaws,  90; 
map,  90,  92  n.,  93  n.,  230,  252 ; 
charged  with  treason,  92-3 ;  allega¬ 
tions  against  Johnson,  92;  re¬ 
lease,  92;  in  England,  92;  loses 
Indian  agency,  92;  and  Letter 
from  South  Carolina,  92  n.,  165  «. ; 
memorial  on  western  policy,  93-4, 
212,  221 ;  expansionist  views,  93, 
103,  186,  220,  221 ;  project  for  new 
colonies,  94,  100,  281,  285;  re¬ 
stored  to  Indian  agency,  98 ;  nego¬ 
tiations  in  West,  98,  185,  221 ; 
friend  of  Hughes,  99;  leader  of 
country  party,  145,  148;  favors 
missionary  efforts,  145-6;  leader 
in  fight  for  trade  regulation,  148; 
author  of  Indian  act  (1707),  148; 
promises  redress  to  Yamasee, 
168 ;  burned  at  stake,  168-9. 

Narhontes  (Torhunta)  Fort,  cap¬ 
tured  by  Barnwell,  159 

Natchees,  King  of,  275  n. 

Natchez  Indians,  armed  by  Iber¬ 
ville,  69;  Welch  negotiates  with, 
90;  Hughes,  and,  102,  105;  trade 
with  English,  104,  106;  raid 

French  Indians,  104;  trading  path 
to,  133;  wars  with  French,  273-5; 
in  South  Carolina,  275  n. 

Needham,  James,  explorations  from 
Virginia,  15,  225 

Needles,  in  Indian  trade,  116 

Negroes,  auxiliaries,  91,  171 ;  in 
Indian  trade,  203.  See  Slaves, 
negro 

Nelson,  Robert,  philanthropist,  305 

Nequasse  (Nucasse),  Cherokee  town, 
131  and  n.;  council  (1730),  277, 
278-9 

Neuchatel,  283,  286-7 

Neuse  River,  159 

Nevis,  7 

Newcastle,  Thomas  Pelham-Holles, 
Duke  of,  and  boundary  question, 
243,  245,  251,  253;  Purry’s  Me¬ 
morial  to,  284-5 ;  and  Cherokee 
treaty,  298,  301 

New  Discovery,  53-4  and  n. ;  read 
in  America,  61-2,  64  n. 

New  Empire,  scheme  for  Coxe’s 
colony,  58  n. 

New  England,  French  and  Indian 


INDEX 


377 


troubles  in,  74-5,  101,  138,  162; 

Indian  slaves  sold  in,  113-14,  171; 
arms  sought  in,  171,  174;  Coram 
settlement  scheme,  309  and  n. 

New  France,  43,  47.  See  also 

Canada. 

New  Hampshire,  townships,  294; 

agent  for,  305 
New  Jersey,  5,  49-50 
New  London  (South  Carolina), 

172,  173 

Newman,  Henry,  and  the  religious- 
philanthropic  movement,  287,  305 
and  n.,  308 
New  Mexico,  58 
New  Netherland,  4 
New  Orleans,  227,  288 
Newport  (Rhode  Island),  114 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  on  Purry’s  clim¬ 
ate  theory,  284  n. 

New  Windsor,  126,  127,  132 
New  York,  and  western  trade,  49, 
50,  109,  224;  frontier  forts  in,  63, 
234;  French  plan  conquest,  72; 
cooperation  of,  93,  174,  257;  and 
French  danger,  224-5,  227 
Niagara,  224,  232 

Nicholson,  General  Francis,  44,  191 ; 
on  Coxe,  49,  58 ;  governor  of 
Maryland,  60;  on  French  encircle¬ 
ment,  60-1,  229 ;  on  western 

trade,  60-1,  62,  100,  143,  222; 
interview  with  Couture,  60 ;  gov¬ 
ernor  of  Virginia,  61 ;  reads 
Hennepin,  61 ;  supports  Jones’s 
scheme,  62;  correspondence  with 
Bellomont  and  Blake,  62-3,  64 
and  n. ;  activity  in  Indian  affairs, 
112,  199-200,  264-5;  supports 

Quary’s  scheme,  143 ;  advises 
Virginia-South  Carolina  trade  con¬ 
ference,  203 ;  on  South  Sea  Com¬ 
pany’s  negotiations  for  Carolina, 
219  n. ;  provisional  royal  governor 
of  South  Carolina,  220,  264;  in¬ 
structions  to,  220,  232 ;  and  Caro¬ 
lina  agents,  229;  eulogy  of  Barn¬ 
well,  229  n. ;  arrival  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  235 ;  supports  building  of 
Fort  King  George,  235,  237 ;  and 
controversies  with  Florida,  239- 
41,  245;  proposes  conquest  of 
Florida,  242;  return  to  England, 
243,  289 ;  on  independent  com¬ 
pany,  246;  urges  retention  of  Al- 
tamaha,  251;  on  proprietary  land 
policy,  282 ;  supports  frontier  town¬ 


ship  scheme,  283,  292 ;  charges 
against,  289 
Ninety-Six,  129,  188 
Noofka,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Nombre  de  Dios,  Yamasee  town  in 
Florida,  250,  255 
Nooherooka,  Tuscarora  fort,  161 
Norfolk  county  (Virginia),  Coxe’s 
title  in,  50,  59 

Norris,  John,  on  gaols  committee, 
312  m. 

North  Carolina,  95,  221 ;  as  an  agri¬ 
cultural  frontier,  157 ;  Indian 
trade  unimportant,  157-8;  rela¬ 
tions  with  South  Carolina,  158  m.; 
Tuscarora  War  in,  158-61 ;  aids 
South  Carolina  in  Yamasee  War, 
161,  171,  173,  175,  183;  in  confer¬ 
ences  on  Indian  trade,  204 
Northern  rangers,  190 
Northwest  Passage,  Cherokee  trad¬ 
ing  path,  130 

N ouvelle  decouverte,  51-2  andn. 
Nova  Scotia,  boundaries,  224  m., 
226;  as  frontier,  231-2;  as  rival 
of  Georgia,  309  w. ;  projects  of 
Gee  and  Coram  concerning,  309, 
315 

Noyowee,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Nucasse.  See  Nequasse 
Nuyuhi.  See  Noyowee 

Oakchoy  Captain,  Upper  Creek 
chief,  274 

Oakmulgee.  See  Okmulgee 
“Observations”  (1723),  Carolinian 
argument  on  Florida  boundary, 
240-1,  243,  252;  refuted  by  Ar¬ 
redondo,  240-1 

Occaneechi  Indians,  murder  Need¬ 
ham,  15 

Occaneechi  path,  40,  61,  129,  154 
Ochase.  See  Ochese 
Ochese  Creek,  upper  Ocmulgee 
River,  36-7,  39,  45,  133,  183 
Ochese  Creek  Indians,  l7,  36,  83  n., 
133,  135,  254.  See  also  Creeks, 
Lower 

Ocilla  River,  9 

Ocklocknee  (Apalache)  River,  9 
Ocmulgee  River,  36,  37,  133,  134 
Oconee,  Lower  Creek  town,  133,  134, 
254 

Oconee  River,  190 
Oconoee,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Ocute,  8,  164  n.  See  also  Oketee 
Ogeechee,  Lower  Creek  town,  134 
Ogeechee  River,  36,  133,  136,  190 
Oglethorpe,  James  Edward,  viii,  22, 


378 


INDEX 


45  n.,  94,  123,  135,  251,  254,  272,  282, 
306 ;  chairman  of  gaols  committees, 
295,  311  and  n.;  opposes  Berke¬ 
ley’s  scheme,  307,  314 ;  Samuel 
Wesley  on,  311;  Percival  on,  311; 
in  politics,  311;  enlarges  Associ¬ 
ates,  312-13 ;  on  unemployment, 
313;  interview  with  Percival,  313- 
14;  defends  King  legacy  in 
Chancery,  313-14;  proposes  debtor 
colony,  314;  and  Gee,  315-16;  and 
Bray,  316-18;  Associate,  320  n., 
322,  323  n. ;  as  founder  of  Geor¬ 
gia,  324 

“Oglethorpians,”  opposed  by  Coram, 
318,  322 

Ohio  River,  15,  50,  63,  65,  66;  val¬ 
ley,  41-2,  63 ;  Penn’s  explorers  on, 
47 

Okata  cassique,  164  n. 

“Oketee”  barony,  164  n. 

Okfuskee,  Great,  Upper  Creek  town, 
82,  134-5,  267 ;  factory,  135,  258  n. ; 
fort  proposed  at,  191 
Okfuskee  (Tallapoosa)  River,  135 
Okfuskee  War  Captain,  265 
Okmulgee,  Lower  Creek  town,  36, 
38,  79,  82,  133,  134,  266;  fields, 
described  by  Bartram,  36,  133 
Old  Estatoee,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Oldfort,  opposite  Savannah  Town, 
40,  44,  132,  187 

Old  Keowee,  Cherokee  town,  130 
“Old  Sandhill  Path,”  134 
Onaconoa,  Cherokee  Indian,  280 
Ormonde,  Mary,  Duchess  of, 
Hughes’s  letter  to,  101 
Osborn,  Rev.  Mr.,  169 
Osmand,  James,  merchant,  121 
Osochi,  Lower  Creek  town,  134 
Ospo,  Guale  town,  8 
Oswego,  234 
Ottawa  Indians,  47,  63 
Ouka  Ulah,  Cherokee  chief,  heads 
embassy  to  England,  279 
Oulactichiton,  Choctaw  chief,  be¬ 
headed,  105 

Oulatchee,  Upper  Creek  chief,  265 
Ouletta,  Lower  Creek  chief,  son  of 
Brims,  264;  English  candidate  for 
succession,  265 ;  commission  to, 
265;  at  Charles  Town,  265-6; 
slain,  266,  268 

Outassatah,  Cherokee  chief,  275 
Overhill  Cherokee.  See  Cherokee 
Oweeka,  Creek  Indian,  264  n. 

Owen,  William,  11,  12,  13 
Owen,  Mr.,  account  of  Louisiana, 
229  n. 


Packhorsemen,  108,  126  and  n. 
Packhorses,  67,  108,  126,  127,  194 
Packs,  127-8 

Palachacola  Fort,  132,  189,  190,  192, 
199 

Palachacola  Old  Town,  132,  151, 
168,  187,  188-9,  230,  255.  See  also 
Apalachicola ;  Cherokeeleechee’s 
town 

Palachacola  rangers,  189-90 
Palatine  Germans,  in  North  Caro¬ 
lina,  159;  scheme  to  divert  to 
southern  border,  291 
Palmer,  Captain  John,  171 ;  his 
Yamasee  campaign,  249-51,  270 
Palmerston,  Henry  Temple,  Vis¬ 
count,  and  D’Allone  legacy,  306; 
and  Berkeley,  307 ;  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  312 

Palmeter,  Captain,  236 
Pamlico  River,  159 
Pardo,  Juan,  Spanish  explorer,  8,  39 
Parga,  Father  Juan  de,  Apalache 
missionary,  heroism  and  death,  79 
Paris,  51,  224,  226 
Parkman,  Francis,  vii,  viii ;  on  Hen¬ 
nepin’s  plagiarisms,  51  n. 
Parliament,  of  Great  Britain,  290, 
305,  312.  See  also  Committees  on 
gaols 

Parliament,  of  South  Carolina,  31 
Parochial  libraries,  305,  318 
Parris,  Alexander,  quoted,  249-50 
Parris  Island,  5 

Parsons,  Alderman,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  312  u. 

Partizan  warfare,  71,  85-6,  88-90, 
95-6,  239 

Pascagoula  Indians,  67 
Pascagoula  River,  136 
Passage  Fort,  236 

Patali,  Apalache  mission,  raided,  79 
Pays  des  Cafres,  284 
Pays  des  Nuits,  284 
Pearl  River,  46,  67,  136 
Pearls,  Couture  on,  44 
Pedee  River,  township  on,  293-4 
Peirce,  trader,  127 
Pelham,  Thomas,  of  Board  of 
Trade,  312  «. 

Peltries,  4,  109-10,  115,  177,  328-33 
Pena,  Lieutenant  Diego  de,  mission 
to  Lower  Creeks,  258,  266  n. 
Penicaut,  Jean,  chronicler,  82,  106 
and  n. 

Penn,  William,  47,  208 
Pennsylvania,  ix,  23,  49,  50,  63,  174, 
224,  225,  291 ;  Savannah  desert  to, 
148 


INDEX 


379 


Pensacola,  Spanish  occupy,  56 ; 
French  seek  cession  of,  68,  72,  73, 
262 ;  at  mercy  of  English,  73 ;  in 
Queen  Anne’s  War,  77,  86,  88,  96 ; 
Hughes  at,  107 ;  illicit  trade  from 
Charles  Town,  198;  Franco-Span- 
ish  contest  for,  218,  223,  227,  232, 
262-3  ;  Apalache  Indians  near,  255 ; 
and  Creeks,  255,  259,  271 ;  and 
San  Marcos,  258 

Pensacola  Bay,  claimed  by  Blake, 
64-5.  See  Santa  Maria  de  Galve 
Percival,  Andrew,  16;  plantation  of, 
44,  172 

Percival,  Sir  John,  Viscount  Per¬ 
cival,  afterwards  first  Earl  of 
Egmont,  member  of  Parliament, 
306;  Associate,  306,  314,  320  n., 
321;  charter  Trustee,  306,  311; 
private  life,  306;  Diary,  306,  313- 
14,  319-20,  323;  chief  collaborator 
with  Oglethorpe,  306;  and  Berke¬ 
ley,  306-7;  on  Oglethorpe,  311; 
member  of  gaols  committee, 
311  w. ;  Samuel  Wesley  on,  311; 
discusses  charitable  colony  with 
Oglethorpe,  313-14,  318;  and  Bray, 
317-18;  chairman  of  Associates, 
322 

Periago,  10,  97,  108,  128,  132,  195 
Perier,  governor  of  Louisiana,  co¬ 
operates  with  Florida,  271-2,  274; 
and  Choctaw,  274 

Perry,  Micajah,  endorses  Azilia, 

212 

Peterba,  164  n. 

Petticoats,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Philanthropists,  English,  281,  295, 
303-24 

Philip  V,  of  Spain,  262-3 
Phillips,  Erasmus,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  Trustee,  311  and  n. 
Piedmont,  Carolinian,  tribes  of, 
116,  162,  176,  181,  184;  trading 
paths  o;f,  129,  136,  161 ;  ^Gee’s 
scheme  for  settlement  of,  315-16 
Pight,  Captain  John,  trader  and 
Indian  fighter,  147,  181,  183 
Pipes,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Pirates,  attack  Guale,  25,  30;  de¬ 
fense  against,  192 
Placentia,  235,  291 
Plains,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Plantations,  estimate  for  setting  up, 
113  w.;  trade  at,  118-20;  ravaged, 
169-70,  173,  178,  184-5,  247-8,  255, 
264 

Planters,  control  Indian  trade,  119- 


20 ;  advocate  public  monopoly, 
193 ;  as  Indian  commissioners, 
193-4;  conflict  of  interest  with 
merchants,  198 

Pocasabo,  Yamasee  town,  164  and  n. 
Pocataligo  River,  164  n. 

Pocotaligo,  Yamasee  town,  151,  164 
and  in. ;  massacre  at,  168-9 ;  cap¬ 
tured,  171 ;  later  location  in 
Florida,  255 

Point  towns,  Lower  Creek  towns  on 
Chattahoochee,  134 
Political  State  of  Great  Britain,  on 
Cherokee  treaty,  302 
Politics,  the  Indian  trade  in,  23-4, 
89,  118,  120,  142-6 
Pollock  faction,  in  North  Carolina, 
160 

Ponchartrain,  Louis  de  Phelypeaux, 
comte  de,  and  the  West,  39,  47 
Ponchartrain,  Jerome  Phelypeaux, 
comte  de,  73,  84,  86,  91,  104 
Ponds,  the,  garrison  at,  172,  180, 
257 

Pon  Pon,  garrison  at,  171 ;  bridge, 
173 ;  raids  on,  255 
Pon  Pon  River,  township  on,  293 
Pontack’s,  Cherokee  dine  at,  297 
Popple,  Alured,  signs  Cherokee 
treaty,  301 

Population,  of  South  Carolina,  22, 
184;  of  Indian  tribes,  129-31, 
133-5 

Port  Mahon,  242,  288 
Port  Royal  county,  later  Granville, 
163 

Port  Royal  Island,  and  region,  in¬ 
tended  site  of  first  colony,  3,  5 ;  a 
Spanish  border,  6-8,  30,  241 ;  set¬ 
tlement  of,  22,  25,  162-3;  Yamasee 
migrate  to,  25-6,  164  n. ;  Scots 
settle  at,  25,  27-8;  on  Gascoyne 
map,  27 ;  and  Indian  trade,  29, 
118,  132,  165 ;  attacked  by  Span¬ 
iards,  31 ;  base  against  Florida, 
76 ;  scouts  at,  87,  190,  236,  248 ; 
and  “Indian  Land,”  91 ;  aban¬ 
doned,  162;  resettled,  162-5;  Barn¬ 
well’s  plantation  at,  163 ;  in 
Yamasee  War,  168-9,  173;  Spots- 
wood  on,  174;  key  to  border,  189, 
191,  247;  garrison,  189;  projects 
for,  209,  230,  251,  288,  290;  re¬ 
moval  of  independent  company  to, 
245-6,  248-9 ;  raids  on,  247,  255 ; 
Palatines  view,  291 
Port  Royal  Indians,  6 
Port  Royal  River,  27 163 
Port  Royal  Sound,  25 


380 


INDEX 


Powder,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  195, 
332 

Powis,  Mary,  Duchess  of,  friend  of 
Hughes,  101 

Pozobueno,  Jacinto,  Marquis  of,  and 
boundary  controversy,  238-40,  242 
Presents,  to  Indians,  63,  84,  90-1, 
104,  116,  127;  French,  83,  260; 
from  Indians,  conflict  over,  147, 
149 

Prestige,  in  Indian  relations,  96, 
250,  255,  295 

Prices,  in  Indian  trade,  196-7,  260 
and  n.t  332-3 

Primo  de  Rivera,  Joseph,  36,  243, 
258 

Prince  George,  Yamasee  Indian,  in 
England,  166,  180  n. 

Pringle,  Robert,  merchant,  121 
Prisons  Open’d,  The,  310-11 
Privateers,  32,  87,  192 
Privy  Council,  Blathwayt  and,  52; 
and  Virginia-South  Carolina  con¬ 
troversies,  156-7 ;  and  western 
policy,  186,  232-3  ;  and  Azilia,  212 ; 
and  royal  government  in  Carolina, 
220;  and  Fort  King  George,  233; 
and  boundary  disputes,  243 ;  and 
southern  colonization,  281,  293, 
294  n. 

Probat,  Anthony,  trader,  147 
“Projet  sur  la  Caroline,”  71-2 
Promoters,  colonial,  x,  22,  324.  See 
also  Cardross ;  Coram ;  Coxe ; 
Hill ;  Montgomery ;  Oglethorpe ; 
Purry 

Promotion  pamphlets,  27  and  n., 
165  213,  281,  287,  324 

Proposals  for  Settling  a  Colony  in 
Florida,  55 

Proprietary  grants,  opposed  by 
Lords  of  Trade,  26-7 
Proprietors,  Lords,  of  Carolina,  4, 
7,  146,  149,  155,  220,  252;  mo¬ 
nopolize  inland  trade,  17-20,  118, 
137-40,  142;  and  Indian  slavery, 
18,  119-20,  137-40;  and  Westo 
War,  20 ;  declining  influence  of, 
20;  neglect  of  South  Carolina,  22, 
64,  93,  97,  186,  218,  227,  287;  and 
Scots’  colony,  27-8,  29  n.,  30-1,  32; 
and  Woodward,  29-30;  and  Span¬ 
ish  invasion  (1686),  30-2;  oppo¬ 
sition  to,  32,  140,  208,  218-19, 
287 ;  instructions  to  Archdale,  37 ; 
encourage  settlement  at  Savannah 
Town,  44-5;  and  Coxe,  58;  and 
Nairne,  92 ;  petition  Board  of 
Trade  regarding  French  encroach¬ 


ments,  97 ;  report  on  Carolina 
trade,  110  n.;  regulate  Indian  af¬ 
fairs,  137-40;  on  purchase  of 
lands,  137;  on  Indian  wars,  138; 
annul  Sothell’s  acts,  141 ;  urge 
regulation,  142;  and  controversy 
with  Virginia,  156-7;  patent  for 
Beaufort  Town,  165;  discredited 
by  Yamasee  War,  186,  207,  208; 
provoke  revolution,  198,  215;  and 
aid  to  South  Carolina,  207,  214 
and  n. ;  refuse  to  surrender  char¬ 
ter,  207;  and  Azilia,  210-11,  212; 
and  Yamasee  lands,  214,  216-17; 
dose  land  office,  217,  238,  282 ; 
and  their  machine,  217 ;  case 
against,  218;  attempt  to  sell  Caro¬ 
lina,  219  and  n. ;  on  boundaries, 
225;  check  settlement,  238,  281, 
283;  oppose  Nicholson,  282;  and 
Purry,  283,  285-7 ;  cease  to  func¬ 
tion,  288-9 ;  seek  to  recover  gov¬ 
ernment,  288-9,  292 ;  attacked, 
289 ;  surrender  charter,  290 
Proselytes,  society  for  relief  of,  304 
Protestants,  foreign,  and  coloniza¬ 
tion,  55,  281,  285 
Prussia,  247,  313 

Public  trade.  See  Regulation  South 
Carolina  Statutes 
Puerto  Bello,  blockade  of,  247 
Pulteney,  Daniel,  boundary  commis¬ 
sioner,  224-5 

Punch-houses,  haunts  of  traders,  108 
Purry,  Jean  Pierre,  colonial  pro¬ 
moter,  x,  22,  254,  287 ;  memoir 
of,  283-4  and  n.\  in  East  Indies, 
283-4;  Amsterdam  projects,  284; 
climate  theory,  284;  in  France, 
284;  appeals  to  England,  284; 
memorials  and  pamphlets,  284-5; 
“Georgina”  scheme,  284-5 ;  and 
Proprietors.  285-6 ;  recruits  colon¬ 
ists,  286  ;  failure,  286  ;  friends  in 
Bray’s  circle,  287 ;  revived  scheme 
endorsed  by  Robert  Johnson,  291  - 
2;  and  Trustees,  322 
Purry  et  Cie.,  286 
Purrysburgh,  287 

Quadruple  Alliance,  227,  262 
Quanasse,  Cherokee  town,  factory, 
196 

Quapaw  Indians,  Welch  and,  46, 
90  n. ;  English  traders  among,  65 
Quary,  Robert,  on  Florida  cam¬ 
paigns,  77-8,  86;  urges  royal  gov¬ 
ernment  and  trading  companies, 
143 


INDEX 


381 


Queen  Anne’s  War,  22,  74-97,  163, 
228 

Quelch,  Benjamin,  Indian  commis¬ 
sioner,  153 

Quiroga  y  Losada,  Diego,  governor 
of  Florida,  instructions,  32 ;  ne¬ 
gotiations  with  South  Carolina, 
33 ;  fails  to  oust  English  from 
Apalachicola,  36;  sends  Primo  de 
Rivera  to  build  Apalachicola  fort, 
36 

Quit-rents,  217,  288,  290,  293 

Rabun  Gap,  130 

Ramesay,  104 

Ramesay-D’Adoucourt  expedition, 

222 

Randolph,  Edward,  32,  64,  142 

Rangers,  Broughton’s  proposal  con¬ 
cerning,  143;  system  established 
in  South  Carolina,  187,  189-90 

Ravenel  plantation,  garrison  at,  172 

Rawlings’  plantation,  rangers’  base 
at,  190 

Red-lead,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 

Red  River,  Hughes  proposes  to  visit, 
103,  105 

“Red-stick,”  181 

Redwood,  commander  at  Schen- 
kingh’s,  172 

Reformation  of  Manners,  Societies 
for,  304,  305 

Regent  of  France  (Philip,  Duke  of 
Orleans),  eagerness  for  Spanish 
alliance,  262-3 

Regulation  of  Indian  trade,  in 
South  Carolina,  95,  122;  expenses 
of,  123,  192  and  n. ;  provincial 
control,  defects,  137 ;  imperializa- 
tion  of,  137 ;  in  provincial  politics, 
137,  145 ;  proprietary  control  of, 
137-41 ;  rival  schemes  of,  142-3 ; 
under  Moore,  142-5;  under  John¬ 
son,  145-9 ;  constitutional  aspects, 
146;  control  by  Commons,  149-50; 
methods  of  (1707-1715),  149-53; 
Virginia  traders  subjected  to,  154- 
7 ;  under  public  trade  regime, 
193-8 ;  results  under  public  trade, 
197 ;  and  merchants,  197-8 ;  under 
mixed  system,  198-9,  202 ;  under 
restored  system  of  private  trade, 

199- 203  ;  under  governor  and  coun¬ 
cil,  199-200 ;  under  single  com¬ 
missioner  chosen  by  assembly, 

200- 2;  influence  on  Georgia  legis¬ 
lation,  202;  and  license  system, 

202- 3 ;  and  intercolonial  conflicts, 

203- 5.  See  also  Blake ;  Eveleigh ; 


Indian  commissioners ;  Intercolon¬ 
ial  relations;  Sir  Nathaniel  John¬ 
son  ;  Merchants ;  James  Moore ; 
Planters;  Proprietors;  Trade 
Reichenbach,  Fischer  de,  Swiss  col- 
only  plan,  283 

Religious  societies,  and  Dr.  Bray 
304 

Remonville,  Sieur  de,  on  English 
in  West,  47 ;  proposals  for  Miss¬ 
issippi  colony,  48,  52  n. 
Reservation,  Yamasee,  163-4 
Revolution,  anti-proprietary,  in  South 
Carolina  (1719),  217-19,  288-9 
Rhett,  Colonel  William,  87,  146,  217 
Rhode  Island,  Indian  slaves  in,  114; 

agent  of,  208;  Berkeley  in,  307 
Riall,  Francis,  French  deserter, 
103  n. 

Ricahecrians,  6.  See  Westo 
Rice  and  rice  culture  in  South 
Carolina,  22,  108,  110-11,  207 
Richards,  John,  15 
Richardson,  trader,  127 
Richebourg,  Rev.  Mr.,  170 
Richmond-Wells,  Cherokee  at,  297 
Rickahogo,  16.  See  Westo 
Rio  Grande,  263 
Rio  Panuco,  54,  57 
Rivera.  See  Primo  de  Rivera 
Rivers,  John,  captured  by  Spanish. 
10 

Roche,  Jordan,  trader  and  merchant, 
121,  124,  126,  274 
Rochelle,  Iberville  at,  56 
Ross,  Mary,  studies  of  Spanish 
Florida,  ix 

Round  O  Savannah,  Welch’s  planta¬ 
tion  at,  124  n. 

Royal  Asiento  Company,  249 
Royal  government  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  sentiment  for,  93 ;  effect  on 
control  of  Indian  regulation,  199 ; 
movement  for,  207-9,  219 ;  set  up 
by  revolution,  218 ;  provisional, 
220 ;  continuance  sought,  289 ;  es¬ 
tablished  permanently,  291 
Royal  Society,  London,  48,  277 
Rum,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  117,  165, 
194-5,  196,  332 

Runaway  slaves,  harbored  in  Florida, 
33,  168,  239,  244,  247-8 
Russell,  Captain  Charles,  of  Con- 
garee,  188,  278 
Rye  House  Plot,  27 
Ryswick.  See  Treaty 

Sabacola,  Santa  Cruz  de,  Apalachi¬ 
cola  mission,  34 


382 


INDEX 


Sadkeche,  Yamasee  town,  164  and 
n.  See  Salchiches 
Sadkeche  Fight,  164  m.,  171 
Sadler’s  Wells,  Cherokee  at,  296 
Sagadahoc,  Coram  and,  309  n. 

Sailly,  Charles  de,  Huguenot,  agree¬ 
ment  with  Coxe,  54-5 
St.  Andrew’s  Society,  Charles  Town, 
Cuming  a  member,  277  n. 

St.  Augustine,  3,  6,  8,  9,  10,  24,  25, 
31,  37,  64,  72,  73,  81,  91,  160,  168, 
179,  233,  239,  243,  245,  246,  248, 
249,  252,  269,  293;  founded,  5; 
Searle’s  attack  on,  7,  11;  fortifi¬ 
cation  of,  10,  76;  Moore’s  cam¬ 
paign  against,  75-8 ;  Daniel  takes 
town  of,  76;  church,  76;  relief 
of,  76-7  ;  second  expedition  against 
proposed,  77 ;  French  plan  to  re¬ 
lieve,  78;  scout-boats  cruise  to, 
87,  190;  troops  attack  Charles 
Town,  87;  and  Yamasee  War, 
168,  255,  258;  runaways  harbored 
at,  168,  244;  projected  attack  on, 
218,  222-3,  227;  Nicholson’s  de¬ 
signs  on,  239 ;  within  Carolina 
charter,  241  n.,  252 ;  cession  pro¬ 
posed,  242,  288 ;  capture  vital, 
247;  Yamasee  towns  near,  247; 
base  for  raids  on  southern  border, 
248;  Palmer’s  army  before,  250; 
Yamasee  retire  into,  250;  Creeks 
entertained  at,  257-8 
St.  Bartholomew’s  parish,  167,  169 
St.  Botolph  Without,  Aldgate,  Lon¬ 
don,  304,  317 

St.  Catherine’s  Island,  8,  10,  29,  239; 
Scots  propose  to  occupy,  28  n., 
29;  project  for  settlement  of,  213 
St.  Denys,  Louis  Juchereau  de,  con¬ 
cession  on  Ohio,  66 
“St.  Georges,”  33.  See  San  Jorge 
St.  Giles’  Kusso,  Shaftesbury’s 
plantation  of,  16,  19,  118 
St.  Helena  Indians,  137 
St.  Helena  Island,  25,  29,  89,  145, 
162,  163,  165,  172 
St.  Helena  parish,  165,  167 
St.  Helena  Sound,  6 
St.  James  Park,  Cherokee  in,  297 
St.  James  Santee,  170 
St.  John,  Oliver,  Associate,  320  n. 
St.  John’s  parish,  172 
St.  John’s  River,  8,  81,  255 
St.  Julien,  Peter,  planter  and  trader, 
120 

St.  Mary’s  River,  as  Carolina  bound¬ 
ary,  252 


Saint-Michel,  lives  among  Chicka¬ 
saw,  70 

St.  Paul’s  College,  Bermuda,  307 
St.  Paul’s  parish,  169,  173 
St.  Simon’s  Island,  mission  on,  8 ; 
proposed  fort  on,  237,  238,  251, 
288 

St.  Thomas,  illicit  trade  to  South 
Carolina,  156 

Salazar,  Pablo,  governor  of  Florida, 
protests  against  Woodward’s  ac¬ 
tivities,  24 

Salchiches,  Guale  Indians,  8,  164  n. 

See  Sadkeche 
Salkehatchie,  164  m. 

Salt,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
“Saltketchers  fight,”  164  n. 

Salt  springs,  Hughes  discovers,  100 
Saluda  Old  Town,  129 
San  Buenaventura  de  Guadalquini, 
Guale  mission,  8,  24 
Sandford,  Robert,  voyage,  5,  6,  12 
San  Domingo  de  Talaje,  Guale 
mission,  8 
San  Felipe  fort,  5 
San  Francisco,  Apalache  mission, 
raided,  79 

San  Francisco,  Timucuan  mission, 
81 

San  Jorge  (Jorje),  9,  11,  33,  37,  86. 

See  Charles  Town 
San  Jose  de  Ocuia,  Apalache  mis¬ 
sion,  raided,  79 

San  Jose  de  Zapala,  Guale  mission 
and  garrison,  8,  24 
San  Juan  Island,  25,  26,  243,  250 
San  Luis  (Tallahassee),  Spanish 
garrison,  9,  34,  79,  80 
San  Marcos,  presidio,  258,  261 
San  Matheo,  Timucuan  mission,  81 
San  Miguel  de  Assile,  Timucuan 
mission,  81 

San  Pedro,  Timucuan  mission,  81 
San  Pedro  Mocama,  mission,  8 
Santa  Catalina  de  Afuica,  Timu¬ 
cuan  mission,  destroyed  by  Yama¬ 
see,  31 

Santa  Catalina  de  Guale,  mission 
and  garrison,  8,  24,  243 ;  island, 
10  (see  St.  Catherine’s)  ;  attacked 
by  Indians,  24;  abandoned,  25-6 
Santa  Cruz.  See  Sabacola 
Santa  Elena,  Spanish  presidio,  5,  7, 
8,  11,  33,  244 

Santa  Fe,  Timucuan  mission,  8,  74, 
81 

Santa  Maria  de  Galve,  255,  262.  See 
Pensacola  Bay 


INDEX  383 


Santa  Maria  (Amelia)  Island,  25, 
26,  38,  243 
Santee,  172 
Santee  Indians,  170 
Santee  River,  13  n.,  167,  173 ;  town¬ 
ships  on,  293 
Santee  swamp,  129 
Sapello  (Zapala)  Indians,  25 
Sapelo  (Zapala)  Island,  8 
Saraw  (Cheraw)  Indians,  159,  170, 
173 ;  Spotswood’s  negotiations 
with,  176-7 

Satur,  Jacob,  London  merchant,  286 
Sauvole,  68 

Savage,  Benjamin,  merchant,  121 
Savage,  Colonel  Thomas,  114 
Savannah  (Georgia),  and  Indian 
trade,  123-4 

Savannah  Indians,  migrating  band 
of  Shawnee,  19;  defeat  Westo, 
19;  settle  at  falls  of  Savannah 
River,  21 ;  relations  with  South 
Carolina,  21,  34,  41,  139,  187 ; 
and  Nicholson,  60;  as  auxiliaries, 
88 ;  as  burdeners,  128 ;  desertion 
of,  148;  Berresford  reduces,  148, 
150  ;  Moore’s  expedition  to,  148  n. ; 
in  Yamasee  War,  170,  180-1 ;  mi¬ 
gration,  254.  See  also  Shawnee 
Savannah  River,  21,  34  n.,  40,  110, 

119,  130,  137,  162,  163,  170,  199, 

210;  Scots  explore,  28  n. ;  route  of 
trade,  29,  108,  124,  128-9,  132; 
bounds  Lower  Creek  country,  34, 
259  n. ;  prospected  for  silver,  43  ; 
limit  of  trade,  141 ;  bounds  Ya¬ 
masee  reservation,  163-4,  214; 

frontier  of  defense,  188,  254; 
schemes  for  townships  on,  251, 
264,  282,  293,  294 ;  Purry  grant 
on,  286;  and  Georgia,  320 

Savannah  Town,  entrepot  of  inland 
trade,  21,  29,  36,  40,  43,  108,  132, 
324;  Charles  Town  path  to,  44, 

120,  132,  189-90;  Proprietors  en¬ 

courage  settlement  at,  44-5 ;  Apa- 
lache  removed  to,  80;  Yuchi  near, 
88 ;  water-route  to,  132 ;  limit  of 
trade,  141 ;  Craven  calls  Indian 
conference  at,  168;  in  Yamasee 
War,  173,  179,  180-1 ;  block¬ 

houses  and  forts  at,  187,  188,  199, 
230;  public  factory  at,  194-5,  196; 
prices  at,  196,  332 ;  Chickasaw  set¬ 
tle  near,  273.  See  also  A.  Moore 

Savannahs,  40,  100,  135 
Savy,  John,  trader,  carries  Cherokee 
present  to  George  II,  292 


Sawokli,  Lower  Creek  town,  134, 
260,  268 

Sayle,  William,  governor  of  Caro¬ 
lina,  10,  14 

Schenkingh’s  (Schenkin’s)  Cowpen, 
garrison  at,  172 

Scire  facias,  ordered  against  Caro¬ 
lina  charter,  219  ».,  220 
Scissors,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Scout-boats,  87  n.,  189,  190,  193,  248 
Scouts,  southern,  170-1 ;  under 
Barnwell,  190;  undisciplined,  236; 
employed  to  build  Fort  King 
George,  236-7 

Searle,  Robert,  buccaneer,  raids  St. 
Augustine,  7,  11 

Seepeycoffee,  Coweta  chief,  son  of 
Brims,  257 ;  pro-Spanish,  257-8, 
269 ;  named  successor,  259,  266 ; 
French  pensioner,  260,  266;  seeks 
English  favor,  268;  receives  Eng¬ 
lish  commission,  268 
Selwyn,  Major  Charles,  on  gaols 
committee,  311  and  n.;  Associate, 
314,  320  n. 

Seneca  Indians,  257,  264;  threaten 
Cherokee,  275 
Seraquii,  40.  See  Cherokee 
Sermons,  Georgia,  320,  323 
Servants,  in  Indian  trade,  108,  126, 
202-3 

Settico,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Settlement  Indians.  See  Cusabo 
Sewee,  19,  87 
Sewee  Indians,  139 
Shaftesbury,  Anthony  Ashley 
Cooper,  first  Earl  of,  leading  role 
in  colonization,  4-5 ;  and  Wood¬ 
ward,  12,  14,  16,  17 ;  and  explora¬ 
tion,  14,  15,  17 ;  and  secret  Florida 
trade,  14,  16;  Lederer’s  travels 
dedicated  to,  14;  and  Edisto 
seigniory,  16;  promotes  inland 
trade,  16,  140;  plantation  at  St. 
Giles',  16,  44,  118;  and  monopoly 
of  inland  trade,  17,  118;  downfall 
and  exile,  20;  contemplates  asylum 
in  Carolina,  20;  attracts  Scots  to 
Carolina,  27 

Sharp,  John,  Cherokee  trader,  as¬ 
sault  on,  266,  268 

Shawnee  Indians,  19,  41,  60,  70,  72, 
170.  See  also  Savannah  Indians 
Shea,  John  G.,  on  Hennepin’s  ver¬ 
acity,  51  n. 

Shelton,  Richard,  secretary  to  Pro¬ 
prietors,  210,  217,  251-2,  282,  289 
Shenandoah  valley,  explorations  in. 
221 


384 


INDEX 


Shirts,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Shute,  Samuel,  305 
Silk  culture,  proposals  of,  302  n., 
316 

Silver,  search  for,  14  n.,  43 
Sioux  Indians,  65,  72 
Six  Nations.  See  Iroquois 
Skalilosken.  See  Ketagustah 
Skeel,  trader,  127 
Slater,  John,  project  of,  302  n. 
Slave-trade,  Indian,  origins,  17-18; 
motive  for  Indian  wars,  17-18,  19, 
139,  147,  152;  recognized,  18;  and 
expansion,  18,  23,  67,  74,  80-1, 
109,  140;  issue  between  Pro¬ 

prietors  and  colonists,  18,  20,  138- 
9;  impetus  from  Westo  War,  20; 
role  of  Savannah  in,  21,  40;  Car- 
dross  and,  30-1 ;  opposed  by  Arch¬ 
dale,  38 ;  Iberville  on,  69-70 ;  and 
Charles  Town  market,  85,  113, 
147;  Cadillac  denounces,  98,  104; 
relative  importance  in  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  109;  significance  of,  112; 
statistics,  112-14;  markets  for, 
113-14;  justified,  114,  139;  and 
politics,  119-20,  140;  and  free 

Indians,  147,  152,  165;  Yamasee 
War  and,  171,  179  w. ;  under  pub¬ 
lic  trade,  194  n.,  195.  See  also 
Slaves,  Indian 

Slave-traders,  Indian,  19,  40,  74, 

)  104,  107,  119,  138,  140,  147,  152 

Slaves,  Indian,  19,  31,  80;  numbers 
in  South  Carolina,  112-13;  ex¬ 
portation  favored,  113;  fears  of 
risings  of,  113;  as  artisans,  113 
and  n. ;  as  field  laborers,  113  and 
n.;  prices  of,  113  and  n.,  194  m; 
licences  for  export,  113-14,  138, 
140;  duties  on,  114;  in  New  Eng¬ 
land,  114;  as  packhorsemen,  126; 
women  and  children,  152;  Yama¬ 
see,  171,  179  n.  See  also  Slave- 
trade,  Indian 

Slaves,  negro,  22,  91,  113,  126,  145, 
171,  174-5,  178,  184,  192,  215,  300. 
See  also  Negroes;  Runaway  slaves 
Sleigh,  Samuel,  Creek  trader,  warns 
of  plot,  269 

Sloane,  Sir  Hans,  and  Coxe,  49  n. ; 

and  Associates,  319  n. 

Sloper,  William,  on  gaols  commit¬ 
tee,  312;  Associate  and  Trustee, 
314,  320  m. 

Sludders,  William,  Creek  trader, _  127 
Smallpox,  epidemic  among  Indians, 
142 

Smallwood,  James,  merchant,  121 


Smallwood,  Mathew,  merchant  and 
trader,  post  at  Altamaha  forks, 
248;  and  Yamasee,  248,  264  n. ; 
scalped,  248,  270 

Smith,  George,  assemblyman,  148 
Smith,  James,  228  and  n. 

Smith,  Rev.  Samuel,  assistant  rector 
of  St.  Botolph,  317;  Associate  and 
Trustee,  317,  321m.,  322;  biogra¬ 
pher  of  Bray,  317,  319  m.;  on 
Bray’s  initiative  in  Georgia  enter¬ 
prise,  317;  preaches  Bray  sermon, 

320 

Smith,  Thomas,  Landgrave,  planter 
and  trader,  120 ;  conflicts  with 
council  and  Indian  board,  120 ;  and 
Louisiana,  229  n. 

Smith,  Captain  Thomas,  181 
Society  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge,  Bray  and,  304;  Nel¬ 
son  and,  305;  Newman  and,  305; 
investigates  prisons,  310 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  report  to 
(on  Cherokee),  131;  appealed  to 
for  missionaries  to  Carolina  In¬ 
dians,  145 ;  sends  Thomas  to  Ya¬ 
masee,  145,  166;  supports  clergy  in 
South  Carolina,  165 ;  Bray  and. 
304;  and  Associates,  306 
Society  of  Archers  entertains  Chero¬ 
kee,  297 

Some  Considerations  (1721),  author¬ 
ship  of,  228  and  n. 

Somerscald,  Rev.  Daniel,  Associate, 

321  m. 

Soquee,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Sothell,  Seth,  45,  140-1 
Soton,  coureur  de  bois,  66 
South  Carolina,  as  a  frontier  prov¬ 
ince,  vii,  3,  63,  93,  185-6,  207, 
208-9,  220,  227,  230,  232,  293 ;  first 
settlement  of,  3,  6;  population,  22, 
113,  138;  geographical  advantages, 
23 ;  system  of  Indian  alliances,  82, 
95,  136;  western  claims  of,  94; 
prosperity,  basis  of,  110;  exports 
of  peltry  from,  111-12;  328-31; 
English  interest  in,  231,  291,  294, 
302.  See  also  following  four  topics ; 
also  Agents,  colonial;  Agents,  In¬ 
dian;  Anglo-French  rivalry;  An- 
glo-Spanish  rivalry;  Boundaries; 
Carolina;  Charles  Town;  De¬ 
fense  ;  Expansion ;  Intercolonial 
relations  ;  Merchants  ;  Politics  ; 
Proprietors ;  Regulation ;  Royal 
government;  Trade;  Traders;  Ya- 


INDEX 


385 


masee  War;  and  under  names  of 
several  governors  and  Indian  tribes 

South  Carolina,  Assembly  of,  and 
international  rivalry,  77,  79,  89, 
108-9,  200,  227,  237-8,  240-1,  242, 
246,  252 ;  and  Indian  affairs,  95, 
166,  191-2,  248-9,  259,  269,  270, 
275 ;  and  regulation,  124-5,  142, 
200;  and  defense,  171-2,  173,  178, 
191-2,  246;  and  intercolonial  rela¬ 
tions,  156,  175;  and  Proprietors, 
184,  217,  289;  converted  into  con¬ 
vention  (1719),  218;  “Observa¬ 
tions”  (1723),  240-1,  252;  and  set¬ 
tlement  of  borders,  282-3 ;  de¬ 
fended  against  aspersions,  289  n. 
See  also  South  Carolina,  Com¬ 
mons  House,  and  Council 

South  Carolina,  Commons  House  of 
Assembly  of,  and  Indian  affairs, 
37,  41,  82,  171,  190 ;  and  Anglo- 
French  rivalry,  64,  79,  89,  95,  288; 
and  regulation,  95,  120,  122,  142, 
145,  146-9,  153,  193,  196,  198,  199, 

200,  202;  and  intercolonial  rivalry, 
154-5,  158-9.  See  also  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  Assembly 

South  Carolina,  Council  of,  193,  215, 
244,  265,  270.  See  also  South 
Carolina,  Assembly 

South  Carolina,  Statutes,  for  equip¬ 
ping  Florida  expedition  (1686), 
32 ;  prohibiting  distant  trade 
(1691),  40,  45,  141;  prohibiting 
credit  in  Indian  trade  (1702),  75, 
144;  for  St.  Augustine  expedition 
(1702),  76;  establishing  watches 
and  scout-boats  (1707,  1710,  1713), 
87 ;  regulating  the  Indian  trade 
(1707),  89,  149-51,  152,  155;  ap¬ 
pointing  magistrates  (1693,  1696), 
141m.;  restraining  traders  (1706), 
147;  “to  prevent  Horses  being 
brought  by  Land”  (1701),  154-5; 
regulating  Virginia  traders  (1711), 
156-7 ;  “to  Limit  the  Bounds  of  the 
Yamasee  Settlement”  ( 1707) , 
163-4;  highway  act  (1711),  164-5; 
army  acts  (1715,  1716),  175,  178, 
183 ;  militia  acts  (1703, 1707, 1721), 
187;  establishing  forts  (1716- 
1723),  188-9;  establishing  rangers 
(1716-1717),  190;  appropriation 

act  (1725),  192;  for  public  trade 
(1716),  193-4;  additional  act 

(1716),  196;  renewing  act  (1717), 
198 ;  for  mixed  system  of  trade 
(1719),  198-9;  restoring  private 
trade  (1721),  199,  204;  establish¬ 


ing  single  commissionership 
(1724),  200;  regulating  trade 

(1727,  1731),  201-3;  appropriating 
Yamasee  lands  (1716),  214-5;  for 
electing  public  receiver  (1707), 
215;  for  rebuilding  Fort  King 
George  (1726),  246;  for  expedi¬ 
tions  “against  our  Indian  and 
other  Enemies”  (1727),  270:  to 
encourage  trade  with  Choctaw  and 
Chickasaw  (1725),  273;  “for  the 
better  settling  of  the  Frontiers” 
(1721),  283 

South  Edisto  River,  165 
South  Sea,  50 
South  Sea  Bubble,  213 
South  Sea  Company,  and  Carolina, 
213,  219  and  n. 

Southwest,  old,  viii,  63,  71,  88,  97, 
230,  263 

Spain,  24,  115,  217,  227,  247,  254,  261 
Spaniards,  88,  167,  185,  217,  218,  233, 
242,  262.  See  also  Florida 
Spanish  Point,  28 

Spirito  Sancto  River,  55.  See  Apa¬ 
lachicola 

Spiritta  Sancta,  Bay  of,  96 
Spooner,  Mr.,  plan  for  New  Empire, 
58  n. 

Spotswood,  Alexander,  over-rated  as 
leader  of  British  westward  move¬ 
ment,  x,  96  m.,  220  m.,  221,  222-3; 
ideas  anticipated,  61,  93,  143;  and 
Price  Hughes,  99,  223 ;  champions 
Virginia  traders,  156;  seeks  new 
route  to  western  Indians,  156,  221 
and  n. ;  on  decline  of  Virginia 
trade,  157 ;  his  Indian  trade  com¬ 
pany,  157,  176,  177,  198,  221;  and 
Tuscarora  War,  158-60;  and 
Barnwell,  158;  and  Yamasee  War, 
173  and  n.,  174-7,  181 ;  controver¬ 
sies  with  South  Carolina,  175,  177, 
204;  explorations,  177,  221;  on 
French  menace  and  western  policy, 
206,  209,  220-3 ;  favors  attack  on 
Florida,  222-3 ;  and  Senecas,  257 
Stanyarne,  James,  planter  and  trader, 
120 

Stecoe,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Steed,  William,  trader,  79 
Stephens,  Thomas,  317  n. 

Stephens,  William,  132 
Stert,  Arthur,  boundary  commis¬ 
sioner,  252 

Stevens,  Robert,  and  Yamasee;  145 
Stewart,  John,  Port  Royal  planter, 
and  Upper  Creeks,  46  n. ;  expan¬ 
sionist,  103  ;  grant  to,  163 


386 


INDEX 


Stinking  Linguas,  82.  See  Alabama 
Stockings,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  195 
Stone,  Captain,  173 
Stono  Indians,  137 
Stono  Island,  173 
Stono  River,  10,  87,  167,  173,  190 
Strouds,  in  Indian  trade,  108,  116, 
195,  332 

Stuart,  John,  and  Board  of  Trade 
plan  (1764),  137  n. 

Stuart’s  Town,  26,  28,  30-1,  162,  211. 

See  also  Cardross 
Sugar,  and  international  rivalry,  4 
Sugar  Town  (Cunasagee),  Cherokee 
town,  130 

Sukeki.  5Ve  Soquee 
Susquehannah  River,  50 
Swanton,  John  R.,  on  southern  In¬ 
dians,  ix,  164  n. 

Swiss,  projected  colonies  of,  165, 
283,  284-7,  292,  308 
Switzerland,  285-6 

Tacoreche,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Taensa  Indians,  68,  84,  86,  90 
Talaje,  238,  240 

Talapoosa  Indians  (Upper  Creeks), 
23,  90,  151-2,  271 ;  Carolina  trade 
with,  39,  46,  108,  120,  266  n. ;  Colo¬ 
nel  Bull  negotiates  with,  74, 144  n. ; 
Anglo-French  rivalry  among,  75, 
78,  82;  employed  against  French 
and  Spanish,  82,  85,  88,  104;  al¬ 
liance  with  South  Carolina,  82-3 
and  n. ;  numbers  and  location, 
134-5  and  n. ;  in  Yamasee  War, 
169;  peace  with,  256-7 ;  attack  Ya¬ 
masee,  266 

Talbot,  Sir  William,  publishes  Led- 
erer’s  travels,  14-15 
Talbot  Island,  26 

Talichaliche,  Lower  Creek  Indian, 
258 

Tallahassee,  Spanish  garrison  at,  9 
Tallapoosa  River,  134,  135,  256,  259 
Tallasee,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Tama,  interior  province  in  Georgia. 
8,  324 

Tama  Indians,  8 

Tamahita  Indians,  visited  by  Vir¬ 
ginians,  15 ;  identity,  15  n. ;  and 
Yamasee,  164  n. 

Tamaroa  Indians,  70 
Tampa  Bay,  71,  263 
Tasetche,  Cherokee  town,  279 
Tathtowe,  Cherokee  warrior,  279 
Tawasa  Indians,  86 
Tchicachae,  Choctaw  town,  104 


Tellico,  factory,  196.  See  Great  Tel- 
lico 

Tellico  Plains,  131 «. 

Tempest,  William,  sent  to  England 
to  describe  French  encroachments, 
288 

Temporary  Laws,  forbid  Indian 
slavery,  139 

Tennessee,  Cherokee  town,  131,  267, 
278,  279;  head  warrior  of,  117, 
275,  276 

Tennessee  River,  Indians  of,  21,  45, 
131;  French  knowledge  of,  42; 
Couture’s  exploration  of,  43 ; 
Carolina  trade  route,  65,  90,  93, 
110,  230;  coureurs  de  bois  on,  66; 
forts  proposed  on,  90,  230,  261; 
Hughes  visits,  100;  claimed  by 
Carolina,  230 
Ten  Towns.  See  Yamasee 
Tessento,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Thanet,  Earl  of,  305,  323 
Thomas,  Rev.  Samuel,  abortive  mis¬ 
sion  to  Yamasee,  145 
Thomson,  James,  on  prison  reform¬ 
ers,  310,  312;  social  poet,  322 
Thornburgh,  William,  secretary  to 
Proprietors,  142 
Timber,  Hughes  on,  100 
Timucua,  missions,  7,  8,  17,  81 ;  In¬ 
dians,  8,  30-1 

Tixjana,  Talapoosa  chief,  259 
Tobacco,  and  international  rivalry, 
4;  Board  of  Trade  on  culture  in 
Virginia,  62;  in  Indian  trade,  116 
Tobesofkee  Creek,  133 
Toccoa,  Cherokee  town,  181 
Tocobogga  (Tocobaga)  Indians,  of 
Timucua,  destroyed,  81 
Tohome  Indians,  68,  69,  86,  88;  kill 
Hughes,  107 

Tolemato,  Yamasee  town,  8,  255 
Tomahitans.  See  Tamahita 
Tomasee,  Cherokee  town,  130 
Tomatly,  Creek  town,  164  n. ;  Yama¬ 
see  town,  164  n. ;  Cherokee  town, 
164  n. 

Tombigbee  River,  46,  136 
Tonica  Indians,  106 
Tonti,  Henri  de,  Illinois  establish¬ 
ment  of,  39;  Arkansas  seigniory 
of,  39,  42-3,  65 ;  warns  of  English 
advance,  42,  47 ;  and  Couture,  42, 
65 ;  alleged  memoir  of,  54  and  n. ; 
attempt  to  arrest  Carolina  traders, 
68 ;  negotiations  with  Chickasaw 
and  Choctaw,  68-9 
Torhunta  (Narhontes)  Fort,  cap¬ 
tured  by  Barnwell,  159 


INDEX 


387 


Torres  Ayala,  Laureano  de,  gover¬ 
nor  of  Florida,  controversy  with 
Archdale,  37-9 ;  sends  expedition 
to  Gulf  coast,  45 

Tottenham  Court  Fair,  Cherokee 
visit,  296 

Tourima  Indians,  90 

Tower  of  London,  Cherokee  visit, 
296,  300 

Towers,  Thomas,  Samuel  Wesley  on, 
311;  on  gaols  committee,  312  n.\ 
Associate  and  Trustee,  314,  320  n. ; 
criticised,  323 

Townshend,  Charles,  second  Vis¬ 
count,  Secretary  of  State,  206,  229, 
292 

Townships,  in  Azilia,  211 ;  schemes 
for,  on  borders,  282-3,  293-4 

Toxaway,  Cherokee  town,  130 

Trade,  Indian,  of  South  Carolina, 

vii,  x,  4,  7,  13,  15,  16,  21,  299; 

basis  of  Indian  politics  and  di¬ 
plomacy,  viii,  95,  117,  202,  271 ; 
proprietary  control  of,  16-20,  118- 
19,  137,  140;  with  Westo,  16-17, 
19 ;  with  Savannah,  21 ;  expansion 
of,  22,  39,  44,  63-6,  100-5,  324; 
geographical  advantages  for,  23 ; 
superiority,  23,  271-2;  promoted 
by  government,  23;  attempt  of 
Cardross  to  monopolize,  29-30  ;  and 
international  rivalry,  34,  60-4,  66, 
71,  90,  115,  223,  230;  as  basis  of 
western  claims,  94,  102,  241 ; 

Charles  Town  as  metropolis  of, 
108-9;  contrasted  with  New  York 
trade,  109-10;  commercial  impor¬ 
tance,  110-15;  products,  of,  111-14; 
markets  of,  111-14;  value  to  Great 
Britain,  115;  effects  on  Indians, 

116- 17;  organization,  evolution  of, 

117- 20;  controlled  by  planters, 

118- 20;  controlled  by  merchants, 
120-1,  123;  equipment  of,  127-9; 
cost  of  transportation  in,  127  and 
n.,  195 ;  areas  of,  129-36 ;  and 
Yamasee  War,  185;  recovery  of, 
185,  272 ;  public  monopoly  of, 
193-8 ;  restricted  to  factories,  194; 
Azilia  and,  213;  forts  projected  to 
hold,  230;  endangered  by  Chero- 
kee-Creek  war,  263.  See  also 
Cherokee  ;  Chickasaw ;  Creek  In¬ 
dians  ;  Creeks,  Lower ;  Creeks, 
Upper ;  Intercolonial  relations ; 
Regulation;  Traders;  Trading 
goods;  Trading  paths 

Traders,  Indian,  of  South  Carolina, 

viii,  ix,  9,  23,  26,  29,  30,  83,  95,  108, 


116,  121,  125,  179,  187,  199,  204, 
248,  267 ;  and  government  19,  23-4, 
142 ;  and  expansion,  22,  39,  47, 
63-6,  103,  324 ;  as  explorers,  23-4, 
39,  40,  46,  58,  109,  324;  promote 
Indian  wars,  30,  38,  45,  85,  152; 
on  Chattahoochee,  34-6 ;  among 
Lower  Creeks,  34-7,  161 ;  com¬ 
pared  with  coureurs  de  bois,  39, 
109-10,  152;  with  Cherokee,  40,  62, 
161,  263,  266,  276,  277,  278,  292; 
with  Upper  Creeks,  45-6  and  n., 
225-6,  257 ;  with  Chickasaw,  45-6, 
57,  67,  69,  84,  85,  89 ;  on  Missis¬ 
sippi,  46,  57,  64,  65,  102 ;  Coxe  on, 
58 ;  and  international  rivalry,  60, 
67,  68,  71,  82,  103,  105,  156;  on 
Tennessee  River,  65;  among  Ar¬ 
kansas,  65 ;  alarm  Iberville,  65,  68- 
70;  as  partizan  leaders,  74,  85,  88, 
89-90,  95-6,  104;  abuses  of,  95,  108 
124,  125,  141,  144,  147,  151,  152, 
153,  161,  162,  165-6,  179  n.,  200, 
202,  272;  Indians  revolt  against, 
105,  107,  162,  165,  169-70;  visits 
to  Charles  Town,  108 ;  numbers, 
108,  120,  124;  compared  with  Al¬ 
bany  traders,  109,  136;  Lawson  on 
rise  of,  110;  employed  by  planters, 
118-20,  147;  employed  by  mer¬ 
chants,  121-2 ;  financed  by  mer¬ 
chants,  122 ;  debts  and  defalcations 
of,  122,  125,  151;  poverty  of,  124; 
notable  traders,  124;  predomi¬ 
nance  of  Scotch  and  Irish,  125 ; 
life  of,  125 ;  take  Indian  wives, 
125;  influence  over  Indians,  125-6; 
employ  servants,  126,  202-3 ;  part¬ 
nerships  of,  126-7 ;  equipment  of, 
127-9 ;  agent’s  jurisdiction  over, 
150-1;  instructions  to,  150,  152-3, 
200,  202;  licenses,  153,  166,  200, 
202 ;  give  warning  of  Yamasee 
War,  167-8;  public  services  of, 
179,  181,  201,  248,  267;  restricted 
to  tribes  and  towns,  202 ;  with¬ 
drawn  from  Lower  Creeks,  270 ; 
among  Choctaw,  274 ;  and  Cuming, 
277,  278,  279.  See  also  Regula¬ 
tion;  Slave-dealers;  Trade 
Traders,  Virginia,  14,  40,  61 ;  do  not 
share  in  southwestward  advance, 
40;  South  Carolina  seeks  to  ex¬ 
clude,  154-7 ;  refuse  to  pay  South 
Carolina  duties,  155;  goods  seized, 
155-7;  subjected  to  duties  and  li¬ 
censes  in  South  Carolina,  157; 
compete  among  Catawba  and 


388 


INDEX 


Cherokee,  196-7 ;  competition  neg¬ 
ligible,  204-5,  328 

Traders,  New  York,  in  West,  50,  66, 
109 

Trading-boats,  108,  124,  132;  types 
and  descriptions  of,  127-9 
Trading  goods,  34,  35,  36,  108,  115- 
17,  332-3 

Trading-guns,  116,  177,  332 
Trading  paths,  Carolinian,  23,  36,  230, 
254,  324 ;  to  Catawba,  129 ;  to 
Cherokee,  129-31,  181 ;  to  Lower 
Creeks,  133-4 ;  to  Upper  Creeks, 
134-5 ;  to  Chickasaw,  135-6,  to 
Choctaw,  136;  in  Piedmont,  136, 
161.  See  also  Occaneechi  path 
Transportation,  in  Indian  trade,  cost 
of,  127,  195 

Treaties,  Indian,  with  Creeks  (1705), 
82-3  and  n. ;  with  Creeks  (1717), 
259  and  n.;  with  Cherokee  (Lon¬ 
don,  1730),  298-302 
Treaty  of  Madrid  (1670),  3,  9,  30, 
241,  242,  245,  252 
Treaty  of  Madrid  (1721),  232 
Treaty  of  Ryswick  (1697).  47-8 
Treaty  of  Seville  (1729),  247,  251-2 
Treaty  of  Utrecht  (1713),  97-8,  224 
Trott,  Nicholas,  145,  146,  163,  215, 
217 

True  State  of  the  Case,  218  and  n. 
Trumbull,  trader,  127 
Trustees  of  Georgia,  122  n.,  308,  312 
Trustees  of  the  Parochial  Libraries, 
305,  318  and  n.,  319  n. 

Tuckasegee  River,  131  and  n. 
Tuffnell,  James,  on  gaols  committee, 
312  n. 

Tugaloo,  Cherokee  town,  129,  133, 
181,  182,  266;  English  factory  at, 
129-30,  195,  196;  massacre  of 
Creeks  at,  182-3 
Tugaloo  River,  129  *- 
Tukabahchee,  Upper  Creek  town, 
82,  135,  257,  265,  268;  English 
factory  at,  135 

Tulafina,  probably  a  Yamasee  town, 
8,  164  and  n. 

Tulafina  (Tulifinny)  River,  164  n., 
189 

Tunica  Indians,  67,  68,  86 
Tupiqui,  Guale  Indian  town,  8;  mi¬ 
gration  to  Port  Royal,  25 
Turner,  Frederick  J.,  on  the  west¬ 
ward  movement,  vii 
Tuscaloosa  (Tascaloosa)  River,  135 
Tuscarora  Indians,  158,  159;  retire 
to  New  York,  161 ;  in  Yamasee 
War,  175,  189 


“Tuscarora  Jack,”  163,  237.  See 
Barnwell 

Tuscarora  War,  95,  158-61,  228; 
effect  on  Indian  trade,  111  n., 
160  n. ;  Virginia  and,  160;  South 
Carolina  and,  159-61 
Tuskegee,  Lower  Creek  town,  35, 
134;  Westo  at,  37 
Tuskestanagaes,  82 

Uchizes,  17.  See  Ochese 
Uge,  62.  See  Yuchi 
Ukwaneequa,  Cherokee  Indian,  279 
Unacoi  Gap,  130 
Unaka  Mountains,  130 
United  Provinces,  Hennepin  in,  52 
Upper  Path,  36,  134,  135,  136,  265 
Uriza,  Francisco  Romo  de,  colloquy 
with  Blake,  64-5 ;  attacks  Lower 
Creeks,  74 

Ursins,  Sieur  de  la  Loire  des,  106 

Vale  of  Cowe,  Bartram’s  descrip¬ 
tion  of,  130 

Vale  of  Keowee,  Bartram’s  descrip¬ 
tion  of,  130 

Valour,  H.  M.  S.,  173-4 
Vatt,  John,  308  n.  See  Watt,  Jean 
Vaudreuil,  Philippe  de  Rigaud,  mar¬ 
quis  de,  66 
Vera  Cruz,  56,  72 
Vermilion,  in  Indian  trade,  116,  332 
Vernet,  M.,  Purry’s  agent,  286 
Vernon,  Edward,  Samuel  Wesley 
on,  311;  on  gaols  committee, 
312  n. 

Vernon,  James,  Associate  and  Trus¬ 
tee,  314,  320  n. ;  and  Bray,  317 ; 
and  Oglethorpe,  323 
Viceroy  of  New  Spain,  11,  255 
Viele,  Arnout,  explorations  of,  50 
Villafane,  Angel  de,  Spanish  ex¬ 
plorer,  39 

Virginia,  vii,  3,  10,  13,  21,  23,  50. 
77,  110  n.,  138,  162,  212,  224,  225, 
315;  early  explorations  from,  viii, 

4,  14-15, "  16,  49,  58,  119;  Westo 
trade  with,  16;  projects  for  west¬ 
ern  trade  from,  61-3;  council  of, 
62,  174;  House  of  Burgesses  of, 
62,  158,  176;  French  plan  con¬ 
quest  of,  71-2;  Indian  trade  and 
traders  of,  119,  154,  156,  157,  204- 

5,  328 ;  trade  conflicts  with  South 
Carolina,  154-7,  194,  196-7,  203-5, 
223,  231 ;  decline  of  Indian  trade, 
156,  157,  204-5;  and  Tuscarora 
War,  158-60;  and  Yamasee  War, 
170,  171,  173-7,  178,  183;  contro- 


INDEX 


389 


versy  over  assistance  to  South 
Carolina,  174-6;  and  Saraws,  176- 
7 ;  peace  with  Iroquois,  177 ;  In¬ 
dian  trade  company,  176,  177,  198, 
221 ;  competition  of,  194,  196-7 ; 
in  danger  from  French,  218,  227; 
explorations  of  Blue  Ridge,  221 ; 
exports  of  peltry,  328 

Wabash  River,  50 

Waccamaw  Indians,  in  Yamasee 
War,  170 

Waccamaw  River,  township  on,  293 
Wager,  Sir  Charles,  247 
Wakokai,  Upper  Creek  town,  135 
Waller,  Sir  William,  grant  from 
Coxe,  55 

Walley,  Captain  William,  planter, 
19,  119 

“Wallie,”  8,  11.  See  Santa  Catalina 
de  Guale 

Walpole,  Horatio,  284 
Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  285,  306,  311 
Waniah.  See  Winyah 
Wantoot,  garrison  at,  172 
War  of  the  League  of  Hanover,  247 
War  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  59, 
69,  71-97 

Warner,  Samuel,  trader,  168 
Wars,  Indian,  13,  17-18,  19-20,  154, 
158-61,  162-86,  220;  intertribal,  23, 
152,  167  m.,  263-4,  265-9 
Wassamaw  plantation,  garrison  at, 
172 

Watauga,  Cherokee  town,  131 
Watauga  Gap,  131 
Water-routes,  in  Indian  trade,  23, 
128,  132.  See  also  Tennessee  River 
Wateree  Indians,  129 
Wateree  River,  129;  township  on, 
293 

Watis,  William,  Sr.,  factor,  194 
Watt,  Jean,  Purry’s  agent  in  Lon¬ 
don,  286 ;  agreement  with  Pro¬ 
prietors,  286;  and  Bray  group, 
287,  308  and  n. 

Waxhaw  Indians,  129,  159 
Weaver,  trader,  127 
Welch,  Thomas,  Chickasaw  trader, 
explorer,  and  partizan  leader,  46, 
47,  66,  67,  79,  110,  151;  crosses 
Mississippi,  46;  promotes  Chicka- 
saw-Choctaw  feud,  85 ;  petitions 
of,  85,  90  w. ;  aids  Nairne,  89-90; 
leads  raid  on  Choctaw,  95-6 ; 
plantations  of,  124  n. 

Welsh  colony  on  Mississippi.  See 
Hughes 


Weopka,  Lower  Creek  town,  134 
Wesley,  Samuel,  and  philanthropists, 
310;  The  Prisons  Open’d,  310-11 
West,  Joseph,  governor  of  Carolina, 
deals  in  Indian  slaves,  139,  140 
West,  Richard,  opinion  on  South 
Carolina  Indian  act,  204 
West,  trans-Appalachian,  Virginian 
explorations  in,  viii,  4,  14-15,  40; 
Carolinian  explorations  in,  16,  39, 
41,  45-6;  new  international  in¬ 
terest  in,  60 ;  Hughes’s  enthusi¬ 
astic  description  of,  100-1 ;  first 
Anglo-American  conquest  of,  136 
Westbrooke,  Caleb,  trader,  25  n.,  26; 

incites  raids  on  Timucua,  30 
Western  Company.  See  Compagnie 
d’Occident 

Western  rangers,  190 
Western  policy,  British,  x,  94,  103, 
206,  220,  232-3 ;  provincial  origins 
of,  233 

West  Indies,  4,  19,  242,  247,  314, 
319.  See  also  Anglo-Spanish  riv¬ 
alry;  Slave-trade,  Indian 
West  Jersey,  Coxe’s  interests  in, 
49-50 

Westmoreland,  Jone  Fane,  Earl  of, 
negotiates  surrender  of  Carolina 
charters,  290 

Westo  Indians,  role  in  Carolina  his¬ 
tory,  6,  12,  13,  17;  terrorize 

coastal  tribes,  6,  12,  16,  20 ;  on  Sav¬ 
annah  River,  12,  16;  trade  with 
Virginia,  12,  16;  Woodward’s 

“Westo  voyage,”  16 ;  trade  with, 
16-17,  118;  attack  Spanish  Indi¬ 
ans,  17,  24;  murder  English,  18, 
19;  war  with,  18-21,  29,  118,  138, 
139;  destruction  of,  20;  remnant 
among  Lower  Creeks,  37 
Westo  (Savannah)  River,  12,  13, 
28  n.,  29,  34  n. 

Westobou.  See  Savannah  River 
Weymouth,  Thomas  Thynne,  Vis¬ 
count,  305 

Whetstone,  Admiral,  77 
Whigs,  conspiracies,  27 ;  and  vested 
rights,  208;  and  colonial  policy, 
233 

White,  John,  Trustee,  323 
Whitechapel  prison,  Bray  and,  310 
Whitehall,  59,  94,  231,  235.  See  also 
Board  of  Trade 

Wigan,  Eleazer,  trader,  179 ;  mis¬ 
sions  to  Cherokee,  179,  276 ;  factor 
among  Catawba,  194,  197 
Wiggins,  trader,  127 


390 


INDEX 


William  III,  and  Hennepin,  51-2; 
and  Carolana,  59 

William  and  Mary  College,  protests 
seizures  of  Virginian  traders’ 
goods,  155 

Williamsburg,  156,  158,  175 
Windsor,  Cherokee  at,  295-6 
Winsor,  Justin,  viii,  228  237  n. 

“Winter.”  See  James  Thomson 
Winyah  Indians,  21,  139;  factory, 
194 

Winyah  River,  141 
Withers,  Charles,  on  gaols  com¬ 
mittee,  311m. 

Wood,  Captain  Abraham,  Virginia 
trader,  promotes  explorations,  14, 
15,  40,  119,  154 

Wood,  Alexander,  Creek  trader,  127 
Woodward,  Henry,  pioneer  colonist 
and  explorer,  6;  left  at  Port 
Royal  by  Sandford,  6-7 ;  at  St. 
Augustine,  7 ;  services  as  Indian 
diplomat  and  explorer,  10,  12;  re¬ 
warded  by  Proprietors,  12;  “Chu- 
fytachqj  discovery,”  12-14;  in 
Virginia,  15 ;  commission  for  ex¬ 
ploration  in  West,  16,  20-1,  29-30; 
proprietary  agent,  16;  “Westo 
voyage,”  16 ;  and  Kasihta,  17 ;  in¬ 
cites  raids  in  Guale,  17,  24 ;  pena¬ 
lized,  19,  29;  pardoned  by  Pro¬ 
prietors,  29  ;  arrested  by  Cardross, 
29 ;  censures  Cardross’s  Indian 
policy,  30;  challenges  Spanish  on 
Chattahoochee,  30-5;  achievement, 
36,  324;  Coxe  on,  225 
Woolens,  in  Indian  trade,  108 
Wragg,  Samuel,  merchant,  121  and 
».,  252 

Wright,  John,  Indian  agent,  95,  151- 
2,  166 

Yamacraw,  29 

Yamasee  Indians,  in  Guale,  12,  164  n., 
171,  178,  184,  189;  exodus  from 
Guale,  25 ;  among  Lower  Creeks, 
25 ;  settle  at  Port  Royal,  25-6, 
29  m.;  raid  Florida,  30-1,  81,  89, 
163 ;  Spanish  policy  towards,  32-3 ; 
Colleton  on  status,  33 ;  Carolinian 
policy  towards,  82,  144,  151,  163, 
166 ;  traders  among,  and  their  con¬ 
duct,  120,  144,  153,  162,  165; 
as  burdeners,  128;  missionary 
schemes,  145,  152,  165;  agents 
among,  151 ;  in  Tuscarora  War, 
159;  reservation,  163-4,  214;  ten 
towns  of,  identification,  164  and 
m.  ;  tradition  of  Cherokee  origin, 


164  h.,  181 ;  encroachments  on, 

164-5 ;  grievances  of,  165 ;  begin 
Yamasee  War,  168;  torture 
Nairne,  168-9;  attack  southern 
parishes,  169;  defeats,  171,  178; 
massacred  at  Tugaloo,  182;  ex¬ 
pelled  from  Guale,  184,  189 ;  re¬ 
move  to  Florida,  185,  247,  250, 
255 ;  raid  South  Carolina  border, 
189,  234,  242,  247-8,  255,  264; 
supported  by  Spanish,  242,  248 ; 
attempts  to  remove,  248,  254,  264 
and  m.,  265 ;  murder  Smallwood, 
248 ;  Palmer’s  expedition  against, 
248-51 ;  supported  by  Lower 
Creeks,  263-4 ;  punitive  expeditions 
against,  264,  265-6,  267,  268,  273 
and  n. 

Yamasee  lands,  affair  of,  214-17 
Yamasee  Prince.  See  Prince  George 
Yamasee  War,  107,  112,  117,  120, 
133,  134,  162,  263;  special  char¬ 
acter,  138,  162 ;  causes,  162-7 ;  al¬ 
leged  Spanish  and  French  com¬ 
plicity,  167;  warnings  of,  167-8; 
outbreak  of,  167-9;  narrative  of, 
168-84;  tribes  involved  in,  169-70; 
in  settlements,  169-70,  172-3,  178 ; 
in  Indian  country,  169-70;  Chero¬ 
kee  and,  170,  172-3,  179-81,  206; 
defensive  measures  in,  171-2,  178; 
Virginia  and,  173-7,  183;  North 
Carolina  and,  175,  183;  results  of, 
184-6,  190,  206,  254,  272,  324 
Yazoo  Indians,  85,  89,  90  and  n., 
104,  133,  273 
Yazoo  River,  102,  110 
Ybithachucu,  cacique  of,  and  Moore, 
80 

Yeamans,  Sir  John,  12,  15 
Yeomans,  T.,  merchant,  121 
Yewhaws.  See  Yoa 
Yoa,  Yamasee  town  in  Guale,  8 ; 
migrate  to  Indian  land,  26,  76, 
162,  164  and  n. ;  in  Florida,  town 
burned,  264  n. 

Yoa  King,  captured,  184  n. 

Yonge,  Francis,  on  economic  re¬ 
sults  of  Yamasee  War,  184-5 ;  In¬ 
dian  commissioner,  194;  council¬ 
lor,  215 ;  mission  to  England,  215- 
16;  narrative  of  revolution  of 
1719,  217  m.;  on  proposed  sale  of 
Carolina,  219;  on  Carolina-Florida 
boundary,  252 ;  colonial  agent,  287- 
8;  fights  for  continuance  of  royal 
government,  289 

“You,  master,”  100.  See  Hughes 


INDEX 


391 


“Yousse,”  107.  See  Hughes 
Yuchi  Indians,  16,  17,  34  and  n.,  62, 
88,  134,  170,  181,  187,  254 

Zapala  (Sapelo  Island),  8,  24,  25, 
238,  243 


Zendoya,  governor  of  Florida,  10-11 
Zuniga,  Joseph  de,  governor  of 
Florida,  sends  expedition  against 
Lower  Creeks,  74 ;  praised  by 
French,  78;  reports  Carolinian 
aggression,  86 


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C. 


